GetFEM++ OO-commands

The toolbox comes with a set of MatLab objects mathworks-oo, (look at the @gf* sub-directories in the toolbox directory). These object are no more than the getfem object handles, which are flagged by MatLab as objects.

In order to use these objects, you have to call their constructors: gfMesh, gfMeshFem, gfGeoTrans, gfFem, gfInteg. These constructor just call the corresponding GetFEM++ function (i.e. gf_mesh, gf_mesh_fem, ...), and convert the structure returned by these function into a MatLab object. There is also a gfObject function which converts any getfem handle into the corresponding MatLab object.

With such object, the most interesting feature is that you do not have to call the “long” functions names gf_mesh_fem_get(obj,...), gf_slice_set(obj,...) etc., instead you just call the shorter get(obj,...) or set(obj,...) whatever the type of obj is.

A small number of “pseudo-properties” are also defined on these objects, for example if m is a gfMesh object, you can use directly m.nbpts instead of get(m, 'nbpts').

As an example:

% classical creation of a mesh object
>> m=gf_mesh('load', 'many_element.mesh_fem')
m =
     id: 2
    cid: 0
% conversion to a matlab object. the display function is overloaded for gfMesh.
>> mm=gfMesh(m)
gfMesh object ID=2 [11544 bytes], dim=3, nbpts=40, nbcvs=7
% direct creation of a gfMesh object. Arguments are the same than those of gf_mesh
>> m=gfMesh('load', 'many_element.mesh_fem')
gfMesh object ID=3 [11544 bytes], dim=3, nbpts=40, nbcvs=7
% get(m, 'pid_from_cvid') is redirected to gf_mesh_get(m,'pid from cvid')
>> get(m, 'pid_from_cvid', 3)
ans =
     8     9    11    15    17    16    18    10    12
% m.nbpts is directly translated into gf_mesh_get(m,'nbpts')
>> m.nbpts
ans =
    40

>> mf=gfMeshFem('load','many_element.mesh_fem')
gfMeshFem object: ID=5 [1600 bytes], qdim=1, nbdof=99,
  linked gfMesh object: dim=3, nbpts=40, nbcvs=7
>> mf.mesh
gfMesh object ID=4 [11544 bytes], dim=3, nbpts=40, nbcvs=7
% accessing the linked mesh object
>> mf.mesh.nbpts
ans =
    40
>> get(mf.mesh, 'pid_from_cvid', 3)
ans =
     8     9    11    15    17    16    18    10    12

>> mf.nbdof
ans =
    99

% access to fem of convex 1
>> mf.fem(2)
gfFem object ID=0 dim=2, target_dim=1, nbdof=9,[EQUIV, POLY, LAGR], est.degree=4
 -> FEM_QK(2,2)
>> mf.mesh.geotrans(1)
gfGeoTrans object ID= 0 dim=2, nbpts= 6 : GT_PK(2,2)

Although this interface seems more convenient, you must be aware that this always induce a call to a mex-file, and additional MatLab code:

>> tic; j=0; for i=1:1000, j=j+mf.nbdof; end; toc
elapsed_time =
    0.6060
>> tic; j=0; for i=1:1000, j=j+gf_mesh_fem_get(mf,'nbdof'); end; toc
elapsed_time =
    0.1698
>> tic; j=0;n=mf.nbdof;  for i=1:1000, j=j+n; end; toc
elapsed_time =
    0.0088

Hence you should always try to store data in MatLab arrays instead of repetitively calling the getfem functions.

Avalaible object types are gfCvStruct, gfGeoTrans, gfEltm, gfInteg, gfFem, gfMesh, gfMeshFem, gfMeshIm, gfMdBrick, gfMdState, gfModel, gfSpmat, gfPrecond, and gfSlice.