We released AMaze 3.0 this month. One of the main advances is the use of customizable configurations for the postprocessors PhiView, MagView, HWV and RFE3View. In this article, I will review how you can deal with configuration files and the advantages they offer.
Running the post-processor
To begin, existing users have nothing to worry about. As an example, consider PhiView 3.0. The first time you run the program, it loads the default configuration file phiview_dielectric.cfg (included with the package in the same directory as phiview.exe). With this configuration, the program has plotting and analysis capabilities similar to previous versions. You may never need to change things.
If you are doing conductive calculations, use the File/Load configuration file command to load phiview_conductive.cfg. The program quantities are changed to ones more suitable for conductive solutions (like current density). There are also useful new analysis functions, like surface integrals of total current emitted from an electrode. Subsequently, the conductive configuration will be loaded each time you run PhiView unless you switch back to the dielectric analysis. Note that configuration files are in text format. It is useful to take a look at them with an editor.
The only problem that could occur is that the current configuration file is lost or corrupted. If PhiView cannot find a file or detects an error, the program displays a load dialog with the option to read an alternate configuration. If you loose or modify the default configuration files, you can get replacements from our technical library (http://www.fieldp.com/library.html).
The default files are good templates if you want to create custom configurations. PhiView reports syntax errors detected on load, a useful feature for debugging your files.
Advantages and applications
There are many ways that custom configurations can make your work easier:
- You can reorder or eliminate quantities to display only those that are useful for your application.
- You can change the order and appearance of quantities in line scans and matrix files, saving time by eliminating unnecessary information.
- You can introduce scaling factors to display results in convenient units.
- You can add entirely new expressions calculated from the electromagnetic field values. The new quantities are available in all plot types and analysis operations.
Configurations also make our task easier. We can update many features of the postprocessors simply by posting new configuration files in the library. We can also make user contributions available to the general community.
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