Installation

Requirements

Requirement	Version
Python	3.10 – 3.12
Operating System	Windows 10+, macOS 12+, Linux (Ubuntu 22.04+)

System dependencies

gmsh ships as a self-contained Python wheel on all major platforms — no separate gmsh installation is required.

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Install from PyPI (recommended)

pip install elementa

Verify the installation:

elementa --version   # prints version and exits (if supported)
python -c "import elementa; print(elementa.__version__)"

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Install from Source

git clone https://github.com/soheilgreen/elementa.git
cd elementa
pip install -e ".[dev]"

The [dev] extra installs ruff and pytest for development.

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Virtual Environment (recommended)

Linux / macOSWindows

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install elementa-fem

python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install elementa-fem

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Platform Notes

Linux

On headless servers, a virtual display is required for the Qt GUI:

sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx libglib2.0-0
# If no display server is available:
pip install PyVirtualDisplay

macOS

On Apple Silicon, install Rosetta 2 if the gmsh wheel does not yet have a native arm64 build:

softwareupdate --install-rosetta

Windows

Ensure you are using a 64-bit Python distribution. The Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable is required (usually already present).

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Upgrading

pip install --upgrade elementa

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Uninstalling

pip uninstall elementa