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Looking for recommendations for 2D (or 3D) electric field mapping software. I want to be able to populate a series of electrodes in a plane and understand the equipotentials present when these electrodes are driven to different voltages. Would like to model virtually first before realizing the design in a PCB/PWB to reduce cycle time. Must be low cost or FOSS software. Will be modelling fields in free-space and with patterns of electrodes, so no fancy lossy di-electrics or esoteric material need be supported.

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    Have you looked at FastCap and FastHenry? – Samuel Nov 09 '12 at 01:15
  • @Samuel thanks for the lead. Both of these programs calculate a fixed value (C or L) from the fields so on the surface no I can't use them. But having you remind me of them I realize that if all else fails it will be possible to extract out the salient information by perturbing the design and rerunning it. And since it's CLI it's scriptable! Thanks – placeholder Nov 09 '12 at 01:32
  • @Samuel on eth MIT page from teh code source there is fastmaxwell which does the job! Thanks http://www.rle.mit.edu/cpg/research_codes.htm hopefully this can be applied to the static case. – placeholder Nov 09 '12 at 01:41
  • Very nice. I wrote some Matlab scripts this summer that generate multi-layer planar spiral coil geometries and automatically generate input files for and invoke fasthenry/fastcap to extract inductance and capacitance. Also the script generates scripts for Eagle and Cadence PCB (Allegro) for automatic layout of said coils on PCBs. The simulated inductance matched with fabricated coils within 1.5% for 26 coils from 5µH-130µH. I was very impressed with the accuracy of those softwares, and their scriptibilities. Glad they'll work for you too. – Samuel Nov 09 '12 at 03:46
  • Rather, I'm glad that something similar will work for you :) – Samuel Nov 09 '12 at 04:03
  • Hopefully, this won't be hijacking, but I wanted to try this FastMaxwell and, for the life of me, I couldn't install fftw-2.1.5 as a dependancy, I could compile it, though, no problems (Linux). Is there any trick to this? Their help isn't very "helping". – Vlad Nov 10 '12 at 07:14
  • I have given up on FAstCap2 and FAsterCap. My design is too much for the tool and it crashes and also gives in consistent results. I understand why, part of the issue is that to do his properly I have to model the surfaces better but I don't want to buy the mesh tool. So for simple results it will work, with caveats. – placeholder Dec 07 '12 at 19:30

1 Answers1

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QuickField Student edition - 2D finite element package - Windows

Trace Analyzer - Transmission line parameter calculator for PCB's - Win/Mac/Linux

SATE - Static Field Analysis Toolkit - 2D E-Field - Windows

Radia - 3D Static magnetic fields - Mathematica plugin

PDN Mesh - 2D field problems (Poisson and Helmholtz Equations). - Windows

OpenEMS - open electromagnetic field solver using the FDTD method. Matlab or Octave are used as an easy and flexible scripting interface. - Win/Linux

NEC2 - (Method of Moments) simulates the electromagnetic response of antennas and metal structures. - Win?linux

MMP - The Multiple Multipole Program (MMP) - Win/Unix

MEEP - Meep (or MEEP) is a free finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation software package developed at MIT to model electromagnetic systems. - Win/Linux

LC - LC is simulation tool for the analysis of the electromagnetic properties of electrical interconnects. - Linux/Unix compile

EM Explorer - EM Explorer is a 3D electromagnetic (EM) solver for scattering problems of periodic structures illuminated by arbitrary incident fields including planewaves, Gaussian beams and focused Hi-NA beams - Windows

Atribution: Blurbs copied from respective web sites.

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    The list is nice. It would be interesting to sort them by Win Win/Linux Linux and add "no cost" or "open source" or even the license like GPL-2, MIT... – Jonas Stein Dec 29 '17 at 00:49