GUI#

The ospgui module provides a graphical interface for building ospgrillage bridge deck models interactively, without writing Python code.

Installation#

The GUI depends on PyQt6, which is an optional extra:

pip install "ospgrillage[gui]"

Launching#

From the command line:

ospgui

Or from within Python:

from ospgrillage.ospgui import main
main()
ospgui with interactive 3D Plotly visualization

Interface overview#

The window is divided into three panels:

  • Left — tabbed input forms for geometry, materials, sections, and members (provided by BridgeInputWidget).

  • Centre — a live code view showing the generated ospgrillage Python source, updated as parameters change.

  • Right — an interactive 3-D mesh preview rendered via Plotly (rotate, zoom, and pan the model).

Results viewer#

The GUI can open saved results files (.nc) for interactive post-processing — no Python scripting required.

Opening results#

Use File > Open Results (.nc) (or Ctrl+O) to load a self-contained NetCDF file produced by get_results():

results = bridge.get_results(save_filename="bridge_results.nc")

The interface switches to a results view with five interactive tabs:

Tab

Contents

Deflection

Vertical deflected shape

BMD

Bending moment diagram

SFD

Shear force diagram

TMD

Torsion moment diagram

Shell Contour

Shell element contour plot (shell_beam models only)

A left-hand panel provides loadcase and member filter controls that apply to all tabs.

Results viewer showing the Deflection tab with interactive 3-D deflected shape

Results viewer — Deflection tab showing the deflected shape of a shell-beam bridge under dead load.

Shell Contour tab#

For shell_beam models, the Shell Contour tab renders a plot_srf() contour over the deck slab. Three additional controls appear in the left panel:

  • Component — any of the 17 available components: shell forces (Mx–Mz), displacements (Dx–Dz), or stress resultants (N11–Q23).

  • Colorscale — RdBu_r, Viridis, Plasma, Cividis, or Turbo.

  • Overlay — optionally composite a beam diagram (BMD, SFD, TMD, or Deflection) on top of the contour.

The contour controls are greyed out when viewing a non-contour tab and hidden entirely for non-shell models.

Shell Contour tab showing Mx bending moment contour over the deck slab

Shell Contour tab — Mx bending moment with the RdBu_r diverging colorscale. Red indicates positive (sagging), blue negative (hogging).

The Overlay dropdown composites beam force diagrams on top of the shell contour for direct comparison:

Shell contour with BMD overlay showing beam bending moments over the deck slab

Shell Mx contour with a BMD overlay — beam bending moment diagrams rendered alongside the deck slab response.

API reference#

main()#

Launch the ospgui graphical interface.

Entry point for the ospgui console script. Checks that PyQt6 is available and exits with a helpful message if not, otherwise starts the Qt application and opens BridgeAnalysisGUI.

Raises: SystemExit — with code 1 if PyQt6 is not installed; with the Qt application’s return code on normal exit.