Welcome to modepy’s documentation!¶
modepy
helps you create well-behaved high-order
discretizations on simplices (i.e. triangles and tetrahedra).
These are a key building block for high-order unstructured
discretizations, as often used in a finite element context.
It closely follows the approach taken in the book
Hesthaven, Jan S., and Tim Warburton. “Nodal Discontinuous Galerkin Methods: Algorithms, Analysis, and Applications”. 1st ed. Springer, 2007. Book web page
The basic objects that modepy
manipulates are functions on a simplex.
For example, it supplies an orthonormal basis on triangles (shown here) and tetrahedra.

The file that created this plot is included in the modepy
distribution
as examples/plot-basis.py
.
Here’s an idea of code that uses modepy
:
import numpy as np
import modepy as mp
n = 17 # use this total degree
dimensions = 2
# Get a basis of orthonormal functions, and their derivatives.
basis = mp.simplex_onb(dimensions, n)
grad_basis = mp.grad_simplex_onb(dimensions, n)
nodes = mp.warp_and_blend_nodes(dimensions, n)
x, y = nodes
# We want to compute the x derivative of this function:
f = np.sin(5*x+y)
df_dx = 5*np.cos(5*x+y)
# The (generalized) Vandermonde matrix transforms coefficients into
# nodal values. So we can find basis coefficients by applying its
# inverse:
f_coefficients = np.linalg.solve(
mp.vandermonde(basis, nodes), f)
# Now linearly combine the (x-)derivatives of the basis using
# f_coefficients to compute the numerical derivatives.
df_dx_num = np.dot(
mp.vandermonde(grad_basis, nodes)[0], f_coefficients)
assert np.linalg.norm(df_dx - df_dx_num) < 1e-5
This file is included in the modepy
distribution as
examples/derivative.py
.