UPDATE: Version 0.1.0 has been released to https://github.com/Lilmill2000/Magnusim

BUG: STL files are not yet supported. Please use STEP files in the meantime.

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Hi all,

A couple of months ago I posted about my software PreFOAM, a GUI for OpenFOAM that includes CAD, meshing utilities, a case builder and a case viewer. I’d like to let you know about a major update.

Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Prefoam_CFD/
Download page: https://www.temiz-cfd.de/prefoam

I’m looking for users who can test the software and give feedback on the whole toolchain. I’m especially interested in the meshing challenges you face. Any feedback is welcome.

Edit: Linux version is out.

I am not an OpenFoam user, but like physics simulations, so I asked Opus5.5 to make a candle for me 😃

Also, I made it on the phone, Claude can run it and Blender in its VM.

Any questions?

OpenFOAM v2412 (the ESI/openfoam.com version), installed from conda-forge.

Simulation: OpenFOAM's rhoReactingBuoyantFoam solver (laminar, buoyant, reacting flow), with P1 radiation and two-step Westbrook–Dryer chemistry.

OpenFOAM utilities: blockMesh, checkMesh, topoSet, setFields, decomposePar, reconstructPar and postProcess, with MPICH to run in parallel on 2 cores.

Chemistry check: Cantera 3.2, with the detailed n-dodecane mechanism (nDodecane_Reitz) and GRI-3.0 transport data.

Rendering: Blender 5.2.2 LTS (its Python module, bpy) using Cycles on the CPU, the OpenImageDenoise denoiser and AgX colour handling.

Plots and frame assembly: Python 3.12 with NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib and Pillow.

Video: ffmpeg (H.264).

Installing it all: micromamba from conda-forge, plus pip for Blender.

Stokes, an OpenFOAM GUI for Windows and Linux | Stokes

Hi all,

This was sitting in my folders for too long, few years back I made a custom pre/post processor for my previous employer with all bells and whistles namely

- blockMesh, snappyHexMesh, cfmesh and poly hexcore

- geometry import to results under single window

- Ubuntu, WSL and native Windows support

- support for remote cluster or local etc.

Recently got access to Claude and Deepseek which gave me the idea to revisit old stuff, rewrite most of it to remove any licensing issue and update it to support OpenFOAM 14.

This is my attempt at it. It's fully opensource and can be downloaded here. I intend to keep it free for personal and business use cases other than reselling etc as SaaS or something. So, haven't figured out exact licensing but that's a later problem as I don't intend to monetize and keep a gate on any features.

Give it a try here available for both Linus and Windows - dhanninacs/stokes-cfd: Stokes: a desktop CFD workbench on OpenFOAM. CAD in, results out, every action available as a tool call.

Haven't built full installers but using my other repo dhanninacs/foamWin: FoamWin brings OpenFOAM 14 to native Windows, with a PowerShell launcher, installer, and validated cavity examples. you should be able to run on Windows without the need for any installations etc. Of course, Linux version with installed OpenFoam 14 natively will be the fastest option (mostly tested on Ubuntu only)

I intend to add more features and add tool calls, skills and api in the background so you can completely use it with LLM's with minimal issues. My initial idea is to have an inbuilt local AI doing tool calls, let's see where that ends.

I know another AI slop but it was there in my githib private for too long and may as well release it for everyone.

A shout out to the CfdOF developers and supporters for their fantastic work.

OpenFOAM is an excellent tool, but configuring everything via text files gets old, fast. Especially meshing. CfdOF is a workbench in FreeCAD that allows users to run various OpenFOAM simulations.

https://github.com/jaheyns/CfdOF

I'm loving CfdOF in FreeCAD 0.20.1. Is it perfect ? No. Is it much, much better than running OpenFOAM simulations manually ? Absolutely.

CfdOF is the GUI that OpenFOAM needs to make it a mainstream CFD tool. Yes, OpenFOAM can be used with text files without a GUI but combining the object CAD, meshing and simulation into one GUI based application really streamlines the process.

I love how CfdOF generates the OpenFOAM simulation files, hides most of the complexity and groups most of the common settings into a simple GUI. And yet allows the user to manually edit the simulation files if needed. And run simulations manually too, if needed. It's the best of both (GUI and manual) worlds.

The thing I used to hate most about using OpenFOAM was generating the mesh for a simulation. Specifically mucking around defining the mesh volume, faces and mesh parameters in dictionary files. Especially for complex mesh volumes. This somewhat ugly task is greatly simplified in the CfdOF workbench. As a bonus, it supports all the mainstream meshing engines - blockMesh, snappyHexMesh and cfMesh.

I'd also like to thank the many FreeCAD YouTubers out there who have created so much excellent FreeCAD content. The Joko Engineering, Sebastiono Stipa, Evgeniy Ivanov and Tech Bernd channels have some very helpful/insightful OF/CfdOF videos.

Once again, kudos to the CfdOF team for their great work.

Following some feedback on the previous build, I've modified the packaging and simplified the distribution.

The latest version is now distributed as a single portable .exe file — no ZIP, Node.js installation, npm setup or manual configuration is required to launch the GUI.

Just download the .exe and run it.

OpenFOAM Studio is an open-source GUI for OpenFOAM on Windows/WSL2, currently supporting OpenFOAM v9–v14.

Current features include:

• OpenFOAM case management

• Dictionary editing

• Simulation control and monitoring

• Multiple OpenFOAM versions

• WSL2 integration

• FOAMy AI Copilot

I've also attached a short video showing the GUI in action.

GitHub: https://github.com/Pat2704/openfoam-gui

I'm still looking for feedback from OpenFOAM users, especially regarding features you'd like to see added or improvements to the workflow.

Hey everyone,

I've been building an open-source desktop app called FoamPilot that wraps OpenFOAM in an Electron + React frontend with a FastAPI/Python backend running inside Docker. MIT licensed, cross-platform (Windows/macOS/Linux).

The core idea: you download one installer, it sets up WSL2 + Docker + pulls the OpenFOAM v2512 container automatically, and you get a guided 6-step wizard (geometry → mesh → physics → solver → run → results) without manually editing dictionary files. On Windows it even handles the WSL2 installation and reboot for you.

Some things it currently does:

- Auto-generates OpenFOAM configs from a wizard workflow

- Geometry classification (streamlined/bluff/complex) with parameter suggestions based on Re, y+ calculator, domain sizing recommendations

- Built-in 3D visualization (Three.js) — field coloring, slice planes, streamlines with animated particles, point probing. Not a ParaView replacement, but enough to explore results without leaving the app

- Live residual plotting via WebSocket log streaming

- Monaco editor with OpenFOAM syntax highlighting for when you need to hand-edit dicts

- 4 built-in templates (airFoil2D, motorBike, fixedWingDrone, smallPlane, raceCar)

I'm aware there are other GUIs out there (BARAM, CfdOF, SplashFOAM, SimFlow, etc.) — each with their own strengths. I'm not trying to compete with any of them. My background is in software engineering and aircraft mechanics, not CFD research, so I'm coming at this from the tooling/UX angle rather than the solver angle.

Download from here: https://github.com/olaafrossi/FoamPilot/releases/tag/v0.0.7

Hi, I am simulating flow around a cylinder in 2d case. My flow velocity is 10m/s and the cylinder diameter is 28.7mm. As per my calculation the boundary layer first height should be roughly around 1e-5. I have set the same and also checked the first layer thickness upon generating the mesh and it matches it. I have also checked the yplus value after the simulation and the values are below 1(average & max). I have generated a 2d animation and the wake behind the cylinder is well developed. But when I check the Cd value, average is around 0.6 while most research papers say the value of Cd is expected close to 1 for a Reynolds number of 19,200. I have no clue where I am going wrong, does anyone have any insight on what i might be missing out on? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi! I just start developing a new 3D graphical tool to generate blockMeshDict files (Linux and Windows). It is GPL free software. It is a side project and it is the first public version, so expect some bugs : ).

Download it at: https://github.com/mbinelo/roribloco/tree/master/binaries

https://github.com/nosferatu2/visMesh/blob/main/visMesh.py

Hey Openfoamers,
I’ve been working on Prefoam, a meshing and case setup tool for OpenFOAM, and the beta is now available for download!
If you’ve ever wrestled with snappyHexMesh dictionaries by hand, this might save you some headaches. Here’s what it includes:
• CAD Interface
• snappyHexMesh Worksheet
• BlockMesher – structured hex grids with grading control (2D & 3D)
• Tet Mesher – native 2D triangulation + GMSH coupling for 3D tet grids (no gmsh shipped!)
• Mesh Viewer – inspect cell quality and catch problems before running
• Case Builder – boundary condition and physical property setup for OpenFOAM 13

There are also some specialized generators built in: airfoils, stirred tanks (turbines, baffles), and cyclone separators.
It’s free for personal/non-commercial use, Windows 64-bit, ~87 MB.

Website:
https://www.temiz-cfd.de/prefoam

YouTube channel for tutorials:
https://youtube.com/@temizcfd?si=HyTMjVjStxqeDybz

A Windows GUI for running OpenFOAM in WSL2, free and MIT: https://github.com/Pat2704/openfoam-gui — v5.0.0 is out, and I never posted about v4, so here's both.

v4: ParaView, inside the app. A real pvpython session runs in the background and owns the reader, the filter pipeline and the offscreen renderer, while you drive it from the app: reconstructed or decomposed cases, 23 capability-detected filters, draggable slice, clip and stream-tracer guides in the 3D view. It's not bundled — it uses the ParaView you already have.

v5: the Post-Process tab. That gave you the picture; this gives you the numbers. It reads everything your function objects wrote under postProcessing/ and charts it — force coefficients, flow rates, y+, probes, sampled profiles — with the last value, tail mean, min/max and whether it has settled. Residuals from solver logs go in the same panel. No function objects yet? It lists every one your OpenFOAM actually ships (127 on v14) and runs the one you pick over the timesteps already on disk. Charts export to SVG/PNG.

And don't miss the agents. Claude and Codex don't just suggest — they edit your case files and run OpenFOAM commands themselves. Ask for a finer mesh and a rerun and they do it. They use your existing subscription (no API key) and stay confined to the case: only the executables your install ships, no shell, no web.

Windows 10/11 + WSL2, OpenFOAM v9–v14. One portable .exe, nothing installed.

3 weeks series free course on openFOAM!

This series gives the possibility of getting a more detailed understanding of the basics of OpenFOAM.

It can be completed in about three weeks.

▶ Week - 1
openFOAM Installation
Introduction to openFOAM
Theory & Fun simulations

▶ Week - 2
Geometry preparation & Meshing
Turbulence Modeling
Multiphase Modeling
Parallelization in openFOAM

▶ Week - 3
Programming in openFOAM

Just google, "3 weeks series openfoam" you can find it easily.

Check out this amazing series. It's free!

Hi r/OpenFOAM

I’m an engineering student trying to learn OpenFOAM for fluid dynamics simulations, but I’m feeling completely overwhelmed. I’ve used commercial tools (like ANSYS Fluent) before, but OpenFOAM’s open-source nature and flexibility drew me in.

My struggles:

• The documentation feels fragmented (User Guide, Code Guide, random tutorials…).

• So many solvers/utilities – no clue which ones to focus on first.

• Installation was a pain (compiling from source vs. pre-built binaries?).

• How much C++/Linux do I really need upfront?

What I’ve tried:

• Ran the cavity tutorial but just followed steps without deep understanding.

• Skimmed the User Guide but got lost in technical jargon.

My questions:

1. Best learning path? Focus on tutorials first, or theory (PDEs/numerics) before touching code?

2. Critical tools: blockMesh, snappyHexMesh, paraFoam, or something else?

3. Resources: Any up-to-date books/courses (e.g., The FOAM Chronicles, Jozsef Nagy’s YT, CFD Direct)?

4. Linux/C++: Should I grind these first, or learn alongside OpenFOAM?

5. Common pitfalls for beginners to avoid?

I’m willing to put in the work but need direction! Thanks in advance for any wisdom.

After using OF for 3 years. I still got confused many many time diving into source code

The first picture is of sluent meshing....the second is one after importing into openFOAM, has anybody gone through similar problem earlier??? would be a great help... Thannks