Project Files

Elementa saves and loads projects as .elem files — a ZIP archive containing all model data.

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File Format

An .elem file is a standard ZIP archive with the following contents:

Entry	Description
state.json	Full model state in JSON format
mesh.msh	gmsh mesh file (version 2.2), if mesh has been generated
results.npz	NumPy .npz archive of all result arrays, if solve has been run

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state.json Structure

{
  "settings": {
    "name": "MyProject",
    "space_dim": 2,
    "description": ""
  },
  "parameters": {
    "W": "0.1",
    "H": "0.05"
  },
  "geometry_items": [
    {"kind": "rectangle", "name": "domain", "params": {"dx": "W", "dy": "H", "cx": "0", "cy": "0"}}
  ],
  "boolean_operations": [],
  "selected_physics": ["Electrostatics"],
  "selected_study": "Stationary",
  "time_config": {"t_start": 0.0, "t_end": 1.0, "dt": 0.1},
  "bc_items": [
    {"name": "Ground 1", "kind": "ground", "properties": {}, "boundaries": ["domain_edge_0"]}
  ],
  "physics_config": {"use_material": false, "relative_permittivity": "1.0"},
  "plots": []
}

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Saving

File → Save (Ctrl+S) — saves to the current project path.
File → Save As — prompts for a new path.

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Loading

File → Open (Ctrl+O) — opens a file dialog to select an .elem file.

On load, Elementa: 1. Resets the current state. 2. Parses state.json and reconstructs all model objects. 3. Extracts and loads mesh.msh via skfem.Mesh.load(). 4. Loads results.npz arrays back into the results dictionary. 5. Emits UI update signals so all panels refresh.

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Programmatic Access

You can inspect a project file without launching the GUI:

import zipfile, json
import numpy as np

with zipfile.ZipFile("my_project.elem") as zf:
    state = json.loads(zf.read("state.json"))
    results = np.load(zf.open("results.npz"))

print(state["settings"]["name"])
print(results.files)          # e.g. ['phi', 'E']
phi = results["phi"]