6 Interface Basics

You publish your data via NetFEM by making a series of calls to describe the current state of your data. There are only 6 possible calls you can make.

NetFEM_Begin is the first routine you call. NetFEM_End is the last routine to call. These two calls bracket all the other NetFEM calls.

NetFEM_Nodes describes the properties of the nodes, or vertices of the domain. NetFEM_Elements describes the properties of your elements (triangles, tetrahedra, etc.). After making one of these calls, you list the different data arrays associated with your nodes or elements by making calls to NetFEM_Scalar or NetFEM_Vector.

For example, a typical finite element simulation might have a scalar mass and vector position, velocity, and net force associated with each node; and have a scalar stress value associated with each element. The sequence of NetFEM calls this application would make would be:

  NetFEM_Begin
    NetFEM_Nodes -- lists position of each node
      NetFEM_Vector -- lists velocity of each node
      NetFEM_Vector -- lists net force on each node
      NetFEM_Scalar -- lists mass of each node
    
    NetFEM_Elements -- lists the nodes of each element
      NetFEM_Scalar -- lists the stress of each element
  
  NetFEM_End

Figure 1: These arrays, typical of a finite element analysis program, might be passed into NetFEM.