The envelope equations and Twiss parameters (b and a) provide important bases for uncoupled linear beam dynamics. For sophisticated beam manipulations, however, coupling elements between two transverse planes are intentionally introduced. The recently developed generalized CourantSnyder theory offers an effective way of describing the linear beam dynamics in such coupled systems with a remarkably similar mathematical structure to the original Courant-Snyder theory. In this work, we present numerical solutions to the symmetrized matrix envelope equation for b which removes the gauge freedom in the matrix envelope equation for w. Furthermore, we construct the transfer and beam matrices in terms of the generalized Twiss parameters, which enables calculation of the beam envelopes in arbitrary linear coupled systems. V C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.