Using the Dlubal API without GUI

API & Interfaces
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1

Hallo,
is this permit starting RFEM6Server.exe standalone with --start-grpc-server, or is the gRPC server without opening the GUI?
as my project is optimization and i want to create 1000 trials by genetic algorithm and I dont want to each trial to create the model in the user interface, just want to works internally and give me the results. that will save much time. this is what we do in Ansys APDL, without opening the GUI at all
Best regards,
Wael

3

Hi Wael,

Yes, that is possible. The RFEM 6 Server is designed specifically for this purpose. The RFEM 6 Server is a full-featured version of RFEM but without a GUI. You can communicate with the RFEM 6 Server via API.

A command looks like this:

.\RFEM6Server.exe --email=example@example.org --password=123 --license=000005-25 --start-grpc-server=9000

After that, your program can communicate with the server on port 9000.

More information on running as a server:

https://www.dlubal.com/en/support-and-learning/support/faq/005603

More information on working with the API:

Frank

4

Hi Frank,

Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for. I tried it, but the server does not stay running and I cannot work out why.

I am on RFEM 6.12.0006 with dlubal.api 2.12.6, Windows 11, and the executable is at:

C:\Program Files\Dlubal\RFEM 6.12\bin\RFEM6Server.exe

The command I run (RFEM itself closed, so nothing else holds the licence):

.\RFEM6Server.exe --email=<my email> --password=<my password> --license=      --start-grpc-server=9000

The output is only Qt warnings, then nothing further:

QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "?"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "help-all"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "version"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "DEV-dbg-min-curvature-surface"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "DEV-dedicated-mode"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "newInstance"
QCommandLineParser: option not defined: "osg-log"

Afterwards:

  • Get-Process RFEM6Server returns nothing, so the process has exited
  • Test-NetConnection 127.0.0.1 -Port 9000 fails, so nothing is listening
  • my Python client then gets UNAVAILABLE ... ConnectEx: Connection refused (10061)

I do not think the arguments are wrong: running --help produces FATAL: Failed to parse program arguments: Unknown option 'help', so the parser does report unknown options, and it reports nothing for the four options above.

My questions:

  1. Does the Student/Instructor licence (my ID ) permit starting RFEM6Server.exe with --start-grpc-server, or is server mode restricted to commercial licences?
  2. If it is permitted, is there a log file the server writes on startup, so I can see why it exits silently? Nothing appears on the console beyond the Qt warnings.
  3. Is there anything else required before the server will start, for example a setting in the licence manager, a firewall rule, or a first run of the GUI?

Background: I am running a genetic algorithm and expect to generate and calculate on the order of 1000 model variants, so I would rather not open the user interface for each one. Everything already works against the RFEM window through the API; I am only trying to avoid the GUI overhead.

Best regards, Wael

5

Hi waelnoaman,

I just saw you're working with an very old version of the API, is there a chance to update to the latest version?
https://apidocs.dlubal.com/release_notes.html#release-2-12-6

Starting Server — Dlubal API documentation

Best regards
Robert Milrath

6

Thank you very much, but I actually transfer models together with my colleague, so I need RFEM 6.12.006. That’s why I’m using this older API version 2.12.6 … An update would therefore be difficult. But for which API version can I use RFEM without an interface, when i want to update the RFEM version?