EVOLVER-NOX-Q(1)

📦
version 2.70 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 EVOLVER-NOX-Q(1) 💖

okay bestie, sit DOWN, because we're talking about evolver-nox-q, aka the Surface Evolver but the ✨no-X-support, quadruple-precision✨ flavor. Same iconic Surface Evolver energy, just built different — no X support, and floating point that's quadruple precision because she does NOT do rounding errors, periodt. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

evolver-nox-q — the Surface Evolver program, except with no X support and quadruple precision floating point format. She's the high-precision no-graphics edition, iykyk. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

evolver-nox-q [-a][-d][-e][-i][-m][-q][-w][-x][-y][-h][-V] [-f FILE]
[-pN] [DATAFILE]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the Surface Evolver is this interactive program for modelling liquid surfaces — the kind shaped by all sorts of forces and constraints. Basically? She minimizes the energy of triangulated surfaces according to the energies and constraints you tell her about. It's giving physics, it's giving math, it's giving main character energy fr fr. 🔥

And real talk: this man page is mostly here to document the command line options and the environment variables. That's the vibe. 💜

💅 OPTIONS 💅

okay so here's every single flag, no skips, no cap:

  • -a — autoconvert to named quantities whenever she needs to. This is on by default, bestie. If you wanna turn autoconversion OFF, use -a-. 💖
  • -d — start the program with parser debugging turned on. Same thing as running the debug runtime command. Warning though: she will be SO verbose, copious output incoming, beware. 😭
  • -e — echo stdin to stdout. This one's literally just for testing piped input, it's a lil helper. 🫶
  • -f FILE — after loading DATAFILE, read commands from FILE, and then you get the command line prompt. ✨
  • -i — preserve the DATAFILE numbers for element id's instead of renumbering them. She's keeping the original numbers, no resets. 👑
  • -m — begin with memory debugging on. Equivalent to the memdebug runtime command. Also copious output, beware, your terminal WILL be screaming. 💀
  • -pN — run with N concurrent processes. Parallel girlboss behavior, we love to see it. 🌈
  • -q — convert to named quantities right at the start. Same as the convert_to_quantities runtime command. ⭐
  • -w — exit immediately after ANY warning or error message. This is the batch-run queen right here. 🧚
  • -x — exit immediately after any error message. Also meant for batch runs. 🍓
  • -y — break to the user prompt after any warning message. She pauses to chat. 🎀
  • -h — display this help, then exit. ✨
  • -V — display the version and the banner, then exit. 👑

🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

The latest version of the Surface Evolver, up-to-date documentation, and more are available on-line from:

http://www.susqu.edu/brakke/evolver

go get her bestie 💖

the banner, verbatim, because she's iconic:

Surface Evolver Version 2.70a (Debian 2.70+ds-10), August 27, 2013, 64-bit. Compiled for float128, 33 digits precision. Built with Geomview support.

33 digits of precision. THIRTY-THREE. no cap, that's the whole point of this build. 💅

🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

  • EVOLVERPATH — a colon-separated list of paths that get automatically searched for datafiles, included files, or on-line help documentation. By default, the paths /usr/share/doc/evolver/html and /usr/share/doc/evolver/examples get appended (in that exact order). Want to cancel that default behavior? Append at least three consecutive colons — that's ":::" — at the end of it. Yes really, that's the whole trick. 🫶

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • ~/.evolver_history — your per-user command history file. She remembers. 🙈
  • /usr/share/doc/evolver/manual.pdf — the (complete) Surface Evolver Manual in PDF format. ✨
  • /usr/share/doc/evolver/EvolverDoc.html — the HTML version of the Surface Evolver Manual, containing what the PDF manual has, modulo some advanced material.
  • /usr/share/doc/evolver/examples/ — this folder has the sample material, mainly datafiles and command-files, for the Surface Evolver. go poke around in there bestie. 🎀

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Ken Brakke <brakke@susqu.edu> wrote the core part of the Surface Evolver and still currently maintains it. The king. 👑

This man page was written for Debian by Jerome Benoit <calculus@rezozer.net>. 🫶

😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

Found a bug? Report it to Ken Brakke <brakke@susqu.edu>.

Copyright © 1989-2016 Ken Brakke <brakke@susqu.edu>

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

The complete manual for the Surface Evolver is available in PDF format in the documentation folder as /usr/share/doc/evolver/manual.pdf.

geomview(1), polymerge(1), anytooff(1), oogl(5), readline(3)

okay that's the whole page!! 💖 this one ships from Debian, dated August 2025 — that's the source and the date, bestie, we're not copy-pasting the footer line, we're honoring it. go minimize some energy. slay. ✨🦋💅

📦 where this page comes from