ParaDiGM (Parallel Distributed General Mesh) is a library for managing meshes in a massively parallel distributed environment, with interfaces in C, Python and Fortran.

📖 Documentation

The user documentation is available either on the GitHub page or on ONERA's internal Gitlab.

🛠️ Build and install

Dependencies

General dependencies for building ParaDiGM are:

• a C compiler
• CMake (version 3.16 or higher)
• an MPI distribution

Basic Installation

Follow these steps to build ParaDiGM from the sources:

First, clone the repository

• either from GitHub: git clone git@github.com:onera/paradigm.git
• or from GitLab (for ONERA users only): git clone git@gitlab.onera.net:numerics/mesh/paradigm.git

Then, use the following commands:

1. cd paradigm
2. git submodule update --init extensions/paradigma (if you want to enable ParaDiGMA)
3. mkdir build
4. cd build
5. cmake ..
6. make
7. make install
8. ./pdm_run (if you want to run the test cases)

Configuration with CMake

CMake general options

cmake -D<option1_name>=<option1_value> ... -D<option2_name>=<option2_value>

Installation prefix

CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<prefix>

Enable Fortran interface

PDM_ENABLE_Fortran=<ON | OFF> (default : OFF)

Enable Python interface

PDM_ENABLE_PYTHON_BINDINGS=<ON | OFF> (default : OFF)

If a simple autodetection fails, you can use these options to find Python :

PYTHON_LIBRARY=<path>
PYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR=<path>

Refer to FindPython in the CMake documentation for more information.

⚠️ Note that a shared library is necessary for Python interface: PDM_ENABLE_SHARED=ON

Build shared library

PDM_ENABLE_SHARED=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

Build static library

PDM_ENABLE_STATIC=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

Build tests

PDM_ENABLE_TESTS=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

Enable the use of ParMETIS (parallel graph partitioning)

PDM_ENABLE_PARMETIS=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

If a simple autodetection fails, you can use these options to find ParMETIS :

PARMETIS_DIR=<path>

To link shared libraries, ParMETIS must be compiled with the -fPIC flag.
CMake looks for

• parmetis.h and metis.h includes
• parmetis and metis libraries

Enable the use of PT-Scotch (parallel graph partitioning)

PDM_ENABLE_PTSCOTCH=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

If a simple autodetection fails, you can use these options to find PT-Scotch :

PTSCOTCH_DIR=<path>

To link shared libraries, PT-Scotch must be compiled with the -fPIC flag.
CMake looks for

• ptscotch.h include file
• scotch, scotcherr, ptscotch, ptscotcherr libraries

Enable the use of BLAS / LAPACK (linear algebra)

PDM_ENABLE_BLASLAPACK=<ON | OFF> (default : OFF)

Enable long int for global IDs

PDM_ENABLE_LONG_G_NUM=<ON | OFF> (default : ON)

• ON : PDM_g_num_t type is long int
• OFF : PDM_g_num_t type is int

Enable documentation compilation

PDM_ENABLE_DOC=<ON | OFF> (default : OFF)

Once built (using the make doc command), the documentation home page can be found in build/doc/sphinx/html/index.html

Compiler choice

CC=<C compiler> CXX=<CXX compiler> FC=<Fortran compiler> cmake ...

or use the following CMake options

CMAKE_C_COMPILER=<C compiler>
CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=<CXX compiler>
CMAKE_Fortran_COMPILER=<Fortran compiler>

CMake MPI options

MPI_C_COMPILER=<C MPI wrapper>
MPI_CXX_COMPILER=<CXX MPI wrapper>
MPI_Fortran_COMPILER=<Fortran MPI wrapper>

If a simple autodetection fails, you can use these options to find MPI :

MPI_<language>_LIBRARIES
MPI_<language>_INCLUDE_PATH

Refer to FindMPI in the CMake documentation for more information.

🚀 Quick Start

Examples of use can be found in the test and training directories and in the documentation.

⁉️ Questions & Bug Reporting

If you have a question or encounter a problem, please follow the rules of our community.

💡 Contributing to ParaDiGM

If you would like to contribute to ParaDiGM, make sure you follow these instructions.

⚖️ License

ParaDiGM is available under the LGPL3 license.

© Copyright

Copyright 2026, ONERA The French Aerospace Lab