Skip to content

API Flow Atlas

An interactive, single-page map of how apeGmsh's public methods route data through the library. Pick any action and the package map highlights the exact path it takes, while the side panel annotates what is handed off at each hop.

Scope: the whole library at public-entry-API depth — every user-callable method traced as its own flow. Model-building (model, parts, physical, labels, sections, mesh, mesh_selection), the FEMData / resolution pipeline (constraints / loads / masses → fem.nodes / fem.elements, plus .select() chains), the OpenSees bridge (apeSees(fem) + typed primitives + emitters), Results post-processing (constructors, composites, slabs, plot), cuts / sweeps / drift, ground motions, the viewers (public entry points only), viz, and the public FEM-theory helpers. Internal Qt/VTK widgets and private reader/writer plumbing are not expanded — hops that leave into them are flagged.

905 methods · 96 packages · 294 hops, driven entirely by flows.json.

Open the Atlas full-screen

Best viewed full-screen

The Atlas is a full-viewport app (index · package map · step panel). The inline preview below works, but the Open full-screen button above gives it the room it needs.

How to read it

  • Left — index: every method, grouped by composite. Search with /, or click a node in the map to filter the index to everything that routes through it.
  • Center — package map: faint by default. Selecting a method lights only its path, numbers the packages in call order, and labels the active hop with the data passed. Drag to pan, wheel to zoom.
  • Right — step panel: the ordered hops. Each card shows the action and a highlighted “passes / hands off” box (the cross-method data contract), then the method's inputs / outputs / reads / writes and its src/…:line. Two-stage pipelines are traced end to end (e.g. g.constraints.tie → defs → resolver → records → fem.elements).
  • Deep-link a method with #<method-id>; ↑/↓ step through hops; Esc clears.

Maintaining the data

flows.json is the source of truth. The Atlas fetches it at runtime when the site is served, so edits appear on refresh. The page also keeps an embedded copy so it still works when opened directly from disk (file://, where browsers block local fetch). After editing flows.json, refresh that embedded fallback:

python docs/api-flows/_embed.py

The helper is idempotent and re-validates the JSON (schema keys, referential integrity, embedded-copy round-trip) on every run.