Getting started

To use PyMAPDL, you must have a local installation of Ansys. The version of Ansys installed dictates the interface and features available to you.

For more information on getting a licensed copy of Ansys, visit Ansys.

Installation

Python module

The ansys.mapdl.core package currently supports Python 3.8 through Python 3.11 on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Install the latest release from PyPi with:

pip install ansys-mapdl-core

Alternatively, install the latest from PyMAPDL GitHub via:

pip install git+https://github.com/ansys/pymapdl.git

For a local development version, install with:

git clone https://github.com/ansys/pymapdl.git
cd pymapdl
pip install -e .

This allows you to install the ansys-mapdl-core module and modify it locally and have the changes reflected in your setup after restarting the Python kernel.

Offline installation

If you lack an internet connection on your install machine, the recommended way of installing PyMAPDL is downloading the wheelhouse archive from the Releases Page for your corresponding machine architecture.

Each wheelhouse archive contains all the Python wheels necessary to install PyMAPDL from scratch on Windows and Linux for Python 3.8 and 3.9. You can install this on an isolated system with a fresh Python or on a virtual environment.

For example, on Linux with Python 3.8, unzip it and install it with the following:

unzip PyMAPDL-v0.62.dev1-wheelhouse-Linux-3.8.zip wheelhouse
pip install ansys-mapdl-core -f wheelhouse --no-index --upgrade --ignore-installed

If you’re on Windows with Python 3.9, unzip to a wheelhouse directory and install using the preceding command.

Consider installing using a virtual environment.

Ansys software requirements

For the latest features, you must have a copy of Ansys 2021 R1 installed locally. However, PyMAPDL is compatible with Ansys 17.0 and later on Windows and with Ansys 13.0 on Linux.

Note

The latest versions of Ansys provide significantly better support and features. Certain features are not supported on earlier Ansys versions.

For more information, see Install MAPDL.

Verify your installation

Check that you can start MAPDL from Python by running:

>>> from ansys.mapdl.core import launch_mapdl
>>> mapdl = launch_mapdl()
>>> print(mapdl)

Product:             ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise
MAPDL Version:       RELEASE  2021 R1           BUILD 21.0
PyMAPDL Version:     Version: 0.58.0

If you see a response from the server, congratulations. You’re ready to get started using MAPDL as a service. For information on the PyMAPDL interface, see PyMAPDL language and usage.