When you create a new object (conductor or probe), you will be presented with its edit dialog.
To edit an existing object, double-click on its picture on the configuration window, or select its name from the Modify menu. This will cause its edit dialog to be presented.
The name of the edit dialog is the name of the object being modified. Below the Set, Done, and Cancel buttons is the page selection tabs, which allow you to select information on the object by category. At the bottom left of the window is the type of the object (e.g., Loop, Solenoid, etc.).
Once you have modified all of the parameters that you want to, the changes must be transmitted to the configuration window by pressing the Set button (or the Done button to simultaneously close the edit dialog). If AutoRecompute is enabled, the magnetic field will be recalculated immediately. Be aware that AutoRecompute is disabled whenever you create a new object.
As usual, the Cancel button dismisses the edit dialog without transmitting the changes.
For a conductor the primary specification parameters are on the Specs page, shown here for a solenoid:
The Specs page describes things like the physical dimensions of the object or, in the case of a wire, its path through space. Note that the dimensions of the object may have units, just type them in after the number.
| m | cm | mm | ft | in |
| meter | 0.01m | 0.001m | 12in | 2.54cm |
The position and orientation (Euler angles) of the conductor are specified on the Position page of the conductor's edit dialog:
The orientation of the conductor is specified by three Euler angles. For an axially symmetric conductor such as a loop or solenoid, eulerPsi has no effect on the magnetic field but can be used to rotate conductors with visual cutaways. Angles are specified in degrees, and default values are zero. The conductor is rotated about the origin of its own coordinate system, before being moved to its position.
The details of the current supply is set on the Supply page:
All conductors have an associated current supply, whose name can be any string not containing blanks. Several conductors can use the same current supply. The use of labelled supplies greatly accelerates recalculation of the magnetic fields when only the current is changed. To use current supply named ithaco for the conductor enter this name into the currentSupply box on the supply page of the edit dialog, as shown above. An overall scale factor for the current is specified by the currentScale box. A typical use of currentScale would be to set it to -1 to reverse the power supply connections. The current supplies themselves are set by bringing up an edit dialog for the Current object (using the Modify menu).
To indicate the number of windings use the winding box. For bulky conductor types (Solenoid and Racetrack) both the wireDiameter and winding parameters appear on the Supply page. Between these parameters are two buttons: an arrow and a packing. The number of windings is calculated from the wireDiameter parameter if the down arrow button is selected; to make the calculation go the other way select the up arrow.
The wire packing used to relate wireDiameter and winding is selected by the packing button:
Square packing. To calculate
the winding from the wireDiameter the cross
sectional area is divided by the square of wireDiameter,
rounding to the nearest integer. The reverse calculation is done
without rounding, since wireDiameter need not be integral.
Hexagonal packing. The way
wires pack naturally, a bit tighter than square packing.
Note that the choice of packing does not change the packing of conductor elements used in the field calculation, only the relation between wireDiameter and winding. The conductor elements are always square packed.
Note that the number of turns is better specified in the winding box rather than as CurrentScale because for inductance calculations (not yet implemented) these are very different quantities.
The Looks page describes aspects of the conductor which do not influence its magnetic field, only the way it looks on-screen. For example, to make the conductor invisible just uncheck the visible checkbox.
For an axisymmetric object like a loop there will be parameter nPhi (how many segments to draw the full circle) as well as the range in degrees of azimuthal angles (phi0 to phi1) that should be drawn. This is a visual cutaway only, and does not influence the magnetic field.
The Calc page specifies parameters that influence the calculation of the magnetic field:
Objects that are decomposed into loops or filaments for purposes of calculation use the resolution parameter to determine how finely the object is subdivided into loops for the calculation. This is independent of the winding parameter on the supply page, which determines an overall scaling factor for current and (in a future version) inductance.
If the paraxialEnabled checkbox is ticked, the solenoid field will be calculated using fast paraxial approximations for points closer than paraxialR to the axis, instead of summing over loops. You should experiment with this to determine if the approximation is accurate enough for your purposes.
On the Notes page you can write notes:
Differenct objects have different parameters, so the edit dialogs will not be the same as shown here for the solenoid object. See the object descriptions for conductors and probes for details.