Nabla User Manual

Nabla is a 2D finite-element solver for electromagnetic devices — motors, generators, transformers, actuators — with an optional thermal module and a scriptable Python API.

Using Nabla

Getting started — install, first launch, the guided tours, what the free tier includes.
Interface — window layout, the Model Tree, selection, viewport navigation, settings.
Geometry — points, lines, arcs and circles, snapping, transforms, subdivision, DXF.
Regions & materials — regions, holes, the material library, B-H curves, magnets, iron loss.
Boundary conditions — Dirichlet, Neumann, periodic, the sliding band, far-field.
Coils & circuits — coils, turns, fill factor, windings, phase excitation, the RLC editor.
Motion — motion zones, sliding bands, rotary and linear results.
Meshing — mesh size, element order, the free tier's mesh cap.
Solving — problem types, time integration, nonlinear settings, progress.
Post-processing — field plots, probes, region results, forces, losses, demag risk.

Modules

Machines — PMSM/IM design, skew, bEMF, the IM equivalent circuit, performance maps, reports.
Thermal — heat sources, thermal boundary conditions, steady and transient solves.
Automation — the Python API, the MCP server, and how licensing behaves in both.

Reference

Licensing — tiers, activation, the machine fingerprint, and what a LICENSE_ERROR: means.
File formats — what every file next to your model is for.
Troubleshooting — when a mesh, a solve or a licence does not behave.
API reference — every public method of the Nabla Python API, with signatures and parameters.
Glossary — terms used throughout this manual, in one place.

Using this manual

The manual is ordinary HTML stored next to the application, so it works with no internet connection and nothing you read here is sent anywhere. You can:

open it any time with F1, or from Help → User Manual;
search every page from the box at the top of the sidebar — press / to jump straight to it, Esc to go back to the contents;
bookmark any page in your browser — the files do not move between releases;
print a chapter, or save it as PDF, with Ctrl+P. The sidebar is dropped from the printed copy.

The manual follows your system's light or dark setting.

Conventions

Menu paths are written Model → Create Report PDF.
Buttons, fields and tabs are named exactly as they appear on screen, in bold.
Keys look like Ctrl+S; file names and solver output look like model.mfs.
Lengths are in millimetres and angles in degrees unless a page says otherwise; every other quantity is SI.
Capabilities that need a paid tier carry a badge where they are described: Core Pro Machines Thermal. The manual itself is never gated — every edition, including the free one, ships the whole thing.