Adaptive Mesh Refinement Resources

This page is a partial list of freely available structured adaptive mesh refinement codes, tools and other resources for using adaptive mesh refinement to solve PDEs.

Freely available general-purpose software for patch-based structured AMR

The codes in the list below were chosen because they meet most of the following criteria. For the most part, these codes

Implement patch-based structured AMR.
Are general purpose codes, i.e. not designed for a specific application such as astrophysics.
Are freely available, and do not depend on commercial packages to either install, run, or visualize output.
Available in two and three dimensions
Include multi-rate time stepping (or subcycling)
Run on multi-processor and/or multi-core machines
Include introductory documentation, a reference manual, examples, and descriptions of the algorithms used.
Include solvers for standard problems of elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic types,
Output can be visualized using freely available visualization tools
Are still actively being developed

AMRClaw	R. J. LeVeque (Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA) and M. Berger (New York University, USA)
BEARClaw	S. Mitran (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel HIll,NC, USA)
AMROC	Ralf Deiterding, University of South Hampton (UK)
AMReX	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (USA) (formerly BoxLib).
Chombo	Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (ANAG), Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (USA)
PARAMESH	NASA/Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA (USA) (For most recent versions of this code, see the FLASH code, below.).
SAMRAI	Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (USA).

If you know of a general-purpose AMR package I have left out (especially packages developed outside of the US), please contact me at donnacalhoun [at] boisestate [dot] edu.

Links to other codes that make use of AMR

The links below are to other codes which also may be of interest to researchers seeking information on structured AMR.

AMR AMR is a package of Fortran routines for the numerical solution of hyperbolic conservation laws in 2 and 3 space dimensions. Developed by Marsha Berger (New York University, USA) (website is likely very out of date).

Pluto A modular code for computational astrophysics. Computations may be carried out in either static or adaptive grids, the latter functionality being provided through Chombo (see above). Developed by Andrea Mignone, University of Torino (Italy).
Peano A Framework for PDE Solvers on Spacetree Grids. Developed by Bungartz H-J, Mehl M, Neckel T, Weinzierl T. (Germany/UK)

ExaHyPE ExaHyPE engine for solving systems of hyperbolic PDEs on adaptive meshes using higher order ADER-DG discretizations. Michael Bader (TU Munich), T, Weinzierl T. (Germany/UK),

p4est The p4est software library enables the dynamic management of a collection of adaptive octrees, conveniently called a forest of octrees. p4est is designed to work in parallel and scale to hundreds of thousands of processor cores. Developed by C. Burstedde, L. Wilcox and I. Tobin and J. Rudin, University of Texas at Austin (USA) and University of Bonn (Germany).

DAGH Block-based AMR using a directed acyclic graph hierarchy. Developed by Shyamal Mitra, Manish Parashar, and J. C. Browne (Dept. of CS, Univ. of Texas, Austin).

Enzo Enzo is an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), grid-based hybrid code (hydro + N-Body) which is designed to do simulations of cosmological structure formation. Enzo 2.0 is the product of developments made at UC San Diego, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, MSU, CU Boulder, CITA, McMaster, SMU, and UC Berkeley (USA).

Uintah A highly parallel and adaptive mesh multi-physics framework for emerging petascale platforms. Developed at the Center for Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions (CSAFE), SCI Institute, University of Utah (USA).

GeoClaw AMRClaw (see above) for geophysical applications, in particular, tsunami flow. Written by R. J. LeVeque, M. J. Berger, and D. George. Seattle, WA (USA).

Overture Overlapping mapped grids with support for AMR, RPI (.

GrACE The Applied Software Systems Laboratory (TASSL), Rutgers Univ. NJ (USA). (This code no longer appears to be available, although the website is still very complete).

Racoon II Tree-based framework for time-dependent mesh-adaptive computations on structured grids, Ruhr Univ. Bochum, (Germany)

Basilisk Tree-based flow solver developed University Marie and Pierre Curie, (Paris VI), Paris, France.

RAMSES Tree-based AMR code developed by Romain Teyssier for self gravitating magnetized fluid flow, Computational Astrophysics, Univerisity of Zurich (Switzerland).

NIRVANA A numerical tool for astrophysical gas dynamics, developed by Udo Ziegler (Astrophysics Institute, Postdam, Germany).

A-MAZE AMR code for astrophysics, developed by Rolf Walder and Doris Folini, (ENS, Lyon, France) (webpage last updated 2002).

FLASH AMR code for astrophysical computations, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago IL, (USA).

AstroBEAR An Adaptive Mesh Refinement Code for Astrophysical Calculations. Based on BEARClaw (above). Developed by Jonathan J. Carroll-Nellenback, Brandon Shroyer, Adam Frank, Chen Ding, (Rochester) (USA).

VTF Virtual Test Facility, based on the AMROC code (above). Developed to test fluid-structure interactions, Caltech, Pasadena CA, (USA).

References to structured AMR codes

The links below are to sites that reference AMR codes. It may be necessary to contact the authors of these sites directly to see if the codes referenced are actually available for distribution.

AMR for MHD A parallel AMR code developed by Los Alamos for compressible MHD or HD equations.

GAMER A code which uses GPUs to accelerate a patch-based AMR code designed for astrophysics.

BCM "Building-Cubes Method". A patch-based approach to AMR based on storing non-overlapping fixed sizes patches as the leaves in a quad- or octree. This method has also been developed to work with GPUs.

AMR for Weather and Climate Adaptive-Mesh Refinement (AMR) for Weather and Climate Models. Website maintained by Christiane Jablonowski, University of Michigan (USA).

Tools for AMR

Paraview Paraview is an open-source, multi-platform data analysis and visualization application developed to analyze extremely large datasets using distributed memory computing resources.

hypre Hypre is a library for solving large, sparse linear systems of equations on massively parallel computers.

HDF5 Data model, library, and file format for storing and managing hierarchical data

VisIt Interactive parallel visualization and graphical analysis toolkit

PETSc Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation

FISHPACK A collection of fast solvers for second- and fourth-order finite difference approximations to separable elliptic partial differential equations in a variety of forms. In particular, codes can be used with centered or node based Cartesian grids and used as a black-box solvers for block-structued AMR.

Links to AMR Short courses and workshops

Adaptive Mesh Refinement Short Course by John Bell (CCSE, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory).

Block-structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement Algorithms and Software, by P. Colella (ANAG, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)

Block-structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement Methods for Conservation Laws by Ralf Deiterding, (German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany)

For any suggestions, additions, or comments, please contact me at donnacalhoun [at] boisestate [dot] edu.

Last modified: Thu Mar 9 09:14:40 MST 2017

AMR	AMR is a package of Fortran routines for the numerical solution of hyperbolic conservation laws in 2 and 3 space dimensions. Developed by Marsha Berger (New York University, USA) (website is likely very out of date).
Pluto	A modular code for computational astrophysics. Computations may be carried out in either static or adaptive grids, the latter functionality being provided through Chombo (see above). Developed by Andrea Mignone, University of Torino (Italy).
Peano	A Framework for PDE Solvers on Spacetree Grids. Developed by Bungartz H-J, Mehl M, Neckel T, Weinzierl T. (Germany/UK)
ExaHyPE	ExaHyPE engine for solving systems of hyperbolic PDEs on adaptive meshes using higher order ADER-DG discretizations. Michael Bader (TU Munich), T, Weinzierl T. (Germany/UK),
p4est	The p4est software library enables the dynamic management of a collection of adaptive octrees, conveniently called a forest of octrees. p4est is designed to work in parallel and scale to hundreds of thousands of processor cores. Developed by C. Burstedde, L. Wilcox and I. Tobin and J. Rudin, University of Texas at Austin (USA) and University of Bonn (Germany).
DAGH	Block-based AMR using a directed acyclic graph hierarchy. Developed by Shyamal Mitra, Manish Parashar, and J. C. Browne (Dept. of CS, Univ. of Texas, Austin).
Enzo	Enzo is an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), grid-based hybrid code (hydro + N-Body) which is designed to do simulations of cosmological structure formation. Enzo 2.0 is the product of developments made at UC San Diego, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, MSU, CU Boulder, CITA, McMaster, SMU, and UC Berkeley (USA).
Uintah	A highly parallel and adaptive mesh multi-physics framework for emerging petascale platforms. Developed at the Center for Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions (CSAFE), SCI Institute, University of Utah (USA).
GeoClaw	AMRClaw (see above) for geophysical applications, in particular, tsunami flow. Written by R. J. LeVeque, M. J. Berger, and D. George. Seattle, WA (USA).
Overture	Overlapping mapped grids with support for AMR, RPI (.
GrACE	The Applied Software Systems Laboratory (TASSL), Rutgers Univ. NJ (USA). (This code no longer appears to be available, although the website is still very complete).
Racoon II	Tree-based framework for time-dependent mesh-adaptive computations on structured grids, Ruhr Univ. Bochum, (Germany)
Basilisk	Tree-based flow solver developed University Marie and Pierre Curie, (Paris VI), Paris, France.
RAMSES	Tree-based AMR code developed by Romain Teyssier for self gravitating magnetized fluid flow, Computational Astrophysics, Univerisity of Zurich (Switzerland).
NIRVANA	A numerical tool for astrophysical gas dynamics, developed by Udo Ziegler (Astrophysics Institute, Postdam, Germany).
A-MAZE	AMR code for astrophysics, developed by Rolf Walder and Doris Folini, (ENS, Lyon, France) (webpage last updated 2002).
FLASH	AMR code for astrophysical computations, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago IL, (USA).
AstroBEAR	An Adaptive Mesh Refinement Code for Astrophysical Calculations. Based on BEARClaw (above). Developed by Jonathan J. Carroll-Nellenback, Brandon Shroyer, Adam Frank, Chen Ding, (Rochester) (USA).
VTF	Virtual Test Facility, based on the AMROC code (above). Developed to test fluid-structure interactions, Caltech, Pasadena CA, (USA).

AMR for MHD	A parallel AMR code developed by Los Alamos for compressible MHD or HD equations.
GAMER	A code which uses GPUs to accelerate a patch-based AMR code designed for astrophysics.
BCM	"Building-Cubes Method". A patch-based approach to AMR based on storing non-overlapping fixed sizes patches as the leaves in a quad- or octree. This method has also been developed to work with GPUs.
AMR for Weather and Climate	Adaptive-Mesh Refinement (AMR) for Weather and Climate Models. Website maintained by Christiane Jablonowski, University of Michigan (USA).

Paraview	Paraview is an open-source, multi-platform data analysis and visualization application developed to analyze extremely large datasets using distributed memory computing resources.
hypre	Hypre is a library for solving large, sparse linear systems of equations on massively parallel computers.
HDF5	Data model, library, and file format for storing and managing hierarchical data
VisIt	Interactive parallel visualization and graphical analysis toolkit
PETSc	Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation
FISHPACK	A collection of fast solvers for second- and fourth-order finite difference approximations to separable elliptic partial differential equations in a variety of forms. In particular, codes can be used with centered or node based Cartesian grids and used as a black-box solvers for block-structued AMR.