Requirements

Debian/Ubuntu

  • openEMS depends on the following packages for minimum functionality:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git libhdf5-dev libvtk9-dev \
                     libboost-all-dev libcgal-dev libtinyxml-dev

Note: For earlier versions of Ubuntu you may have to choose an older later version of vtk, such as libvtk7-dev. VTK7 is the lowest version supported.

  • To use AppCSXCAD to visualize 3D models (recommended):

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev libvtk9-qt-dev

  • To use Octave scripting (recommended):

sudo apt-get install octave liboctave-dev

  • To use Python scripting (recommended):

sudo apt-get install python3-numpy python3-matplotlib cython3 python3-h5py

  • To use Paraview to visualize simulation results (recommended):

sudo apt-get install paraview

  • For the package hyp2mat you need additonal dependencies (optional):

sudo apt-get install gengetopt help2man groff pod2pdf bison flex \
                     libhpdf-dev libtool

Fedora

  • openEMS depends on the following packages for minimum functionality:

sudo dnf install cmake git \
                 boost-devel tinyxml-devel \
                 vtk-devel hdf5-devel CGAL-devel

  • To use AppCSXCAD to visualize 3D models (recommended):

sudo dnf install vtk-qt

  • To use Octave scripting (recommended):

sudo dnf install octave

  • To use Python scripting (recommended):

sudo dnf install python3-Cython python3-h5py python3-matplotlib

  • To use Paraview to visualize simulation results (recommended):

sudo dnf install paraview

  • For the package hyp2mat you need additonal dependencies (optional):

sudo dnf install gengetopt help2man groff perl-pod2pdf bison flex \
                 libharu-devel

FreeBSD

openEMS can be installed directly via FreeBSD Ports, there’s no need to install dependencies manually. Please skip to Install Ready-Made Package on FreeBSD for more information.

Also, note that On FreeBSD, the default CMake has a bug, causing it unable to find HDF5 for CSXCAD and openEMS (the ready-made package in FreeBSD Ports is fine). If you want to build openEMS manually, see _manual_freebsd_workaround_src for its workaround.

sudo pkg install cmake git boost-libs tinyxml \
                 vtk9 hdf5 cgal qt5

  • To use AppCSXCAD to visualize 3D models (recommended):

sudo pkg install qt5

macOS

openEMS can be installed via a Homebrew formula, there’s no need to install dependencies manually. Please skip to Install Ready-Made Package on macOS for more information.

The follow instructions are given for developers only, one should follow these instructions only if a manual install is needed during development.

brew install cmake boost tinyxml hdf5 cgal vtk

  • To use Octave scripting (recommended):

brew install octave

  • To use Python scripting (recommended):

pip3 install cython numpy h5py matplotlib --user

  • To use Paraview to visualize simulation results (recommended):

brew install paraview

Windows

openEMS can be installed directly as a pre-built binary package, there is no need to install dependencies (or build openEMS from source) manually. Please skip to Install Ready-Made Package on Windows for more information.

The follow instructions are given for developers only, one should follow these instructions only if a manual install is needed during development.

One can build openEMS on Windows using two different methods. The first method is using MSVC, this is how the official pre-built package is prepared, but it has a long and complicated procedure, and is currently undocumented.

Alternatively, MinGW-w64 and MSYS2 can be used.