The Surface Evolver
Version 2.30
January 1, 2008

• Download the Surface Evolver for various systems.
• Browse Surface Evolver documentation.
• Surface Evolver examples:
  • General examples.
  • Ball Grid Array examples and tutorial.
  • Gull Wing Lead examples and tutorial.
  • Tombstone examples and tutorial.
  • Six-part Surface Evolver workshop presented at Trinity College, Dublin. (Unzip the archive, and start by browsing in workshop.htm)
• Viewer program evmovie for multiple frames of Evolver evolutions. Record frame files from Evolver, load them in evmovie, and scroll back and forth in the evolution, while twirling in 3D and slicing cross-sections.
• Some other people's pages using the Surface Evolver:
  • N.I.S.T. Solder Interconnect Design Team
  • Morwen Thistlethwaite's minimal energy knots
  • Jim Hoffman's LEDG tool for automating the creation of certain classes of Surface Evolver datafiles.

Download Surface Evolver

• Unix/Linux
• Microsoft Windows
• Macintosh OSX

Unix version of the Surface Evolver

• Download evolver-2.30c.tar.gz (careful; some browsers mangle the default save name). This is a compressed tar file containing source code, makefile, sample datafiles and scripts, and PDF and HTML versions of the documentation. This will untar into a READ.ME file and three subdirectories, src (source files), fe (datafiles and scripts), and doc (manual in PDF format, man page evolver.1, and an HTML version). To build, edit the Makefile in src to choose your appropriate system and options.
  IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have a Makefile from a previous version of Evolver, you may use it (be careful it doesn't get overwritten by the distribution's Makefile), but you should add method5.o to the list of object files.

  The HTML version of the documentation contains most of what is in the printed manual, except the parts with lots of mathematical formulas. This can be browsed with any standard Web browser, starting with default.htm. It is also used by the Evolver's "help" command.

• The manual file manual230.pdf can be downloaded by itself, if you wish.

Geomview

Microsoft Windows versions of the Surface Evolver

• The executable for Microsoft Windows, using OpenGL. OpenGL is a universally supported 3D graphics interface, and a lot of graphics cards provide hardware acceleration for OpenGL.
• The manual, manual230.pdf, in Adobe PDF format.
• A fe subdirectory, with sample datafiles and scripts.
• A doc subdirectory, with HTML version of the documentation. This contains most of what is in the printed manual, except the parts with lots of mathematical formulas. This can be browsed with any standard Web browser, starting with default.htm. It is also used by the Evolver's "help" command.

You should create an environment variable EVOLVERPATH that lists these directories, in the same way the standard PATH variable lists directories to be searched. In Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variables, create a system variable EVOLVERPATH and give it the value

c:\evolver\fe;c:\evolver\doc

Macintosh OSX version of the Surface Evolver

• A README file with installation instructions.
• The executable file Evolver, which you can move to /usr/local/bin or some place else on your PATH if you wish. This is a "fat" executable, which means it can execute on both PowerPC and Intel machines.
• The manual, manual230.pdf, in Adobe PDF format.
• A man page evolver.1, which you can move to /usr/share/man/man1 if you wish.
• A fe subdirectory, with sample datafiles and scripts.
• A doc subdirectory, with an HTML version of the documentation. This contains most of what is in the printed manual, except the parts with lots of mathematical formulas. This can be browsed with any standard Web browser, starting with default.htm. It is also used by the Evolver's "help" command.

The unpacked folder probably wound up on the Desktop; you may want to move it somewhere else. I will assume you move it to /Users/yourname/Evolver. You should create an environment variable EVOLVERPATH with paths to datafiles and the HTML documentation files by putting the following line in your .tcshrc file:

setenv EVOLVERPATH "/Users/yourname/Evolver/fe:/Users/yourname/Evolver/doc"

NOTE: Evolver has to be started from a terminal window, since it uses a command line interface.

If you want to compile Evolver yourself, get the unix version and uncomment the MAC OSX lines in the Makefile.