.. role:: envvar(literal) .. role:: command(literal) .. role:: file(literal) .. role:: ref(title-reference) .. _OVERVIEW: Overview ======== PETSc provides a rich environment for modeling scientific applications as well as for rapid algorithm design and prototyping. The library enable easy customization and extension of both algorithms and implementations. This approach promotes code reuse and flexibility. PETSc is designed in an object-oriented style (in C also with Fortran interface), with components that may be changed via a command-line interface at runtime. A few of these objects and their types include: * Matrices (Mat) and Vectors (Vec) * Krylov subspace methods (KSP) and preconditioners (PC) * Nonlinear solvers (SNES) * Time stepping algorithms (TS) PetIGA can be thought of as a thin layer on top of PETSc which allows for parallel assembly of matrices and vectors coming from discretized integral equations. PetIGA is designed in the same style of PETSc, adding its own collection of objects. The commonly accessed ones are: * The context containing all the discretization information (IGA) * An axis in one parametric direction of the B-spline space (IGAAxis) * A edge/face of the B-spline space (IGABoundary) * A quadrature/collocation point (IGAPoint) These tutorials are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather demonstrative of the underlying philosophy and intended usage of these libraries. Obviously we do not speak for the PETSc developers, yet try to carry much of the insight which has made this project successful to PetIGA and therefore the practitioner. We write them with a particular reader in mind: one who works in computation (perhaps limited to Matlab) but with limited experience in using libraries. Having once been such a researcher, we know the challenge it is to dive into to learning and using libraries. We hope that such a collection of tutorials is useful in bringing more researchers to utilize the excellents tools developed and freely offered by a great number of experts. .. Local Variables: .. mode: rst .. End: