Please ! Provide a download file without geek-speak

Usability
1

Hi there,
New to OpenGeoSys and very keen to try it out.

From the web site it looks like it is a geomodelling package, but after trying to figure out how to download the latest release I am confused - is OpenGeoSys a series of tools without a user interface or modelling package attached?

My background is in geomodelling, so all I want is a link to the latest stable release that I can downnload and install- just like for example QGIS provides for GIS.

What does CLI stand for? What is the difference between Data Explorer and CLI with Utilities? What is a singularity container? All of these terms have no explanation on the download page and are not self-explanatory either.

If in all this OpenGeoSys actually is an integrated geomodelling software can you please have a link to a single download file for the latest stable release that users (not developers) like myself can click, fire and forget.

2

Hi,
thank you for having an interest in OpenGeoSys.

OpenGeoSys is a simulation platform. It consists of the main binary (ogs) that handles the simulation and is accompanied by tools, which are there to help you prepare your simulation. Those tools handle tasks related to the simulation for example conversions between mesh formats (e.g.: GMSH2OGS). However, they are not mandatory to use and it is possible to have a workflow with OpenGeoSys without them.

CLI stands for command line interface. The command line is how most users interact with OpenGeoSys. DataExplorer can be used to work with meshes and output data from OpenGeoSys simulation.

If you want to fire and forget, probably the pip installation or container would be the recommended option. The pip installation has some limitations, but it would be the easiest start. On Windows, you can download the current release with bugfixes (6.4.3) with CLI and utilities. You can also find it on the release page.

It is hard to provide a single download file as OpenGeoSys is a complex piece of software. Some of its functionalities depend on external libraries, that cannot be bundled and released by us for reasons related to licensing.

I know, that the first impression for the new user may be not as good as we would like it to be. There is an ongoing effort to improve it. For now, the best starting point for you would be to explore benchmarks, find those that resemble your goal most, download them and run them. Then you can see how they are structured and start adjusting them to your needs.

The content of the project files (the ones with *.prj extension) is described in Doxygen. It is not the most intuitive to navigate through it, but you will find at least a brief description of every tag used in the project file there. There is an ongoing effort to improve the documentation for new users. You can find it here. It is a work in progress, so it is not complete and the link is temporary (it points to our development system, but I will try to keep it updated for you until new content is merged into the official webpage).

I hope, that you will find OpenGeoSys useful. If you had any problems or need help/explanation for something you encounter, please ask and the community will try to help and support you.

2 Likes
3

The Opengeosys installation for geomodelling is not plug & play.

Using your QGIS analogy: installing Opengeosys compared with installing QGis on windows using OSGeo4W (OSGeo4W - OSGeo). Particularly if you need version control because you want to use certain plugins such as UMEP or you need a compatible python library e.g. netcdf4.

With OSGeo4W, you have to make thoughtful selections of what you want (especially plugins for the QGis processing toolbox: saga gis, grass, orfeotoolbox etc).

The Opengeosys approach is similar. But it seems you would like to have an explanation of the Opengeosys terminology before you make choices for the installation. Good start. It seems @felikskiszkurno has helped with that.

I would suggest you use the pip installation to try Opengeosys, because the python toolbox approach is central to both QGis and Opengeosys.