fieldviz: A electric/magnetic field integrator
This program allows the calculation of the electric or magnetic field in a region with arbitrary charge/current distributions.
Installation
You will need my math library from https://github.com/built1n/libfml/. Build and install that before proceeding.
Then build using cmake:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
This should give you a fieldviz executable. Run in-place or do
sudo make install
To install system-wide.
Usage
It's all command-line based:
Use the "add" command along with its requisite parameters to add a current or charge element.
For example,
add I 10 line 0 0 0 1 0 0
will add a 10 amp current on a line from <0 0 0> to <1 0 0>. Different shapes are possible, including circular arcs, solenoids, and toroids. Each will need different parameters, which are documented below.
From there, you can either "draw" the current/charge distributions, or plot the electric/magnetic fields they produce with the "field" command.
Curve parameters
-
Line segment
line [a] [b]
Pretty self-explanatory.
-
Arc
arc [center] [radius] [normal] angle
center, radius, and normal are all vectors. Normal should be normalized, or bad things might happen. Angle is the extent in radians.
-
Solenoid
solenoid [center] [radius] [normal] angle pitch
The first four parameters have the same meaning as they do with arcs. The pitch parameter controls the linear distance between successive turns.
-
Toroid
toroid [center] [radius] [maj_normal] min_radius maj_angle pitch
center and radius have the same meaning as before. See the diagram below for the meanings of the rest.
NOTE: pitch is angular distance between successive turns, or at least it's supposed to be. Currently there's a bug somewhere.