Cygwin + Cygwin/X + CalculiX + FreeCAD + Gmsh + NetGen

Cygwin is a collection of tools for running programs under MS Windows that were originally intended for Linux / Unix-style computers. This package contains CalculiX (compiled under Cygwin) and Cygwin/X, the X11 server used by CalculiX cgx to display graphics. It allows CalculiX to run on a desktop / laptop Windows system. Windows binary distributions of Gmsh, NetGen and FreeCAD are also included.

Hardware requirements

Minimum recommended specification is a core-i processor with 4GB memory; newer / faster processors will generate results more quickly and more memory may be required for larger models.

Operating system requirements

64-bit MS Windows Operating system (7, 8, 10, 11 or Windows server 2008 or later)

Installation - setup.exe version 2.02 (from June 2022)

A new package is now available in the common Microsoft Windows setup.exe format. Run the program to install. The recommended location is at the root of your system drive (typically C:\FEAServer). You can install to other locations but it's highly recommended NOT to install in special locations such as \Windows or \Program Files. Windows imposes extra security for these locations, preventing write access to users, which will stop the package working as intended if installed there. The files installed are as described below.

Extracting the files will take several minutes but when complete you should find the following directories in your chosen location (default C:\FEAServer):

cygwin64 (Cygwin and Cygwin/X 64-bit, plus CalculiX)
freecad (FreeCAD Windows binary distribution)
gmsh (Gmsh Windows binary distribution)
ngsolve (NetGen / Ngsolve Windows binary distribution)
python (version 3.7 Windows binary distribution, for NetGen)
SonoAnalyzer-README (License and README files, plus source code of modified CalculiX files)
Utilities (Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables and Windows batch file launchers)

On completion of the file extraction you should be prompted to run a "RunOnce" program. This will install the required Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable libraries, create batch files to launch the programs without SonoAnalyzer and set an environment variable "SA_FEASERVER" to the installation directory. SonoAnalyzer from version 2.0.7 up will check for this environment variable and prompt you to set up the server automatically.

FEAServer-setup.exe download (570MB) MD5: dc5496b3c32feb99d1087dafca5f431b

Adding analysis engine to SonoAnalyzer Pro

Once extracted, the files are ready for use by SonoAnalyzer Pro version 2.x.x. The final step is to tell Pro to use it. If you've used the setup.exe package above and you haven't set up any other native FEA servers, SonoAnalyzer should prompt you to perform the setup automatically.

Alternatively to do the setup yourself Select Pro -> FEA Servers from the main menu, click the "New "Native FEA (v2)" tab, change file paths / drive letters if you have installed in a different location, click "Setup" and then "Select".

Other use

This is a fully-functional open-source package for running CalculiX, FreeCAD and NetGen on MS Windows. If you wish to run CalculiX directly, without SonoAnalyzer, the launchers in the Utilities directory should set up each program to run interactively. Please see the README file in the folder SonoAnalyzer-README for more information.

If you're looking for help compiling CalculiX ccx and cgx under Cygwin, the full file-set is included in C:\FEAServer\cygwin64\home\chris.