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X N E C V I E W
---------------
A program for visualizing NEC2 structure and gain files (Unix/X-windows).
Copyright (C) 1998-1999, Pieter-Tjerk de Boer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPILING:
----------
This should be trivial on Linux systems: just type 'make' in the
directory where the source has been unpacked.
I also supplied an Imakefile, which might make compilation on other
systems easier: typing 'xmkmf' will generate a Makefile, which can then
be used by 'make'.
You might want to change a few of the #define lines in config.h, to
suit your tastes; see the comments.
USAGE:
------
On the commandline, the program expects to find one or more filenames,
each containing either NEC2 structure (input) data, or output data (gain).
The program will determine the type of data from the data itself.
Additionally, the following options may be provided:
-u or --unbuffered: don't use double buffering; this may increase the
drawing speed at the expense of more flickering
-h or --help : print short usage information
A window is then opened, and the antenna and/or gain pattern drawn.
Initially, the Z axis points up, the X axis points to lower left, and
the Y axis points to lower right (unless you changed those settings in
the source).
The view can be manipulated using the mouse as follows:
- click left mouse button: zoom in.
- click right mouse button: zoom out.
- move mouse while holding left button depressed: rotate, dragging
complete picture.
- move mouse while holding middle button depressed: rotate, dragging
partial picture (faster).
- move mouse while holding right button depressed: move picture.
- click middle mouse button: go back to original view.
The top of the window contains a set of buttons and other indicators;
from left to right these are:
- quit: to stop the program; keyboard shortcut: Q
- reload: to reload the files; keyboard shortcuts: R and .
- export: for saving the picture as (encapsulated) postscript.
- none/struct: toggles displaying of antenna structure on and off.
- none/slice/frame: toggles display of gain pattern.
- lin/arrl/log: toggles gain scaling (linear, ARRL-style or logarithmic
with -40 dB at the center).
- X, Y and Z: rotate view to viewing along X, Y or Z axis respectively.
If the gain display is set to "slice", a gain scale will appear, with
lines at several gain levels (shown in top right part of window).
All of these gains are with respect to the maximum gain in the
entire pattern.
- a message box.
Though xnecview should be quite liberal in accepting output data from
NEC, you might want to start out by using this line (card) in your input:
RP 0, 37, 72, 1000, 0, 0, 5, 5
This will instruct NEC to calculate the gain with a resolution of 5 degrees.
HELP NEEDED:
------------
I'd like some help with the following issues:
- GH-cards (helix/spiral) with helix-length = 0. I don't understand these,
and neither does my copy of NEC. According to doc on the WWW, this is a
non-official extension, but I'd still like to support it.
- GC-cards are not described by my copy of the NEC documentation, but they
do occur in practice. They seem to describe a tapered wire. I would like
to know more details.
HISTORY:
--------
Version 0.1, 1998-06-06:
- first public release
- only few input card types supported
Version 0.2, 1998-12-13:
- almost all input card types supported
- added plotting of gain pattern
- colour added
- made front and back of surfaces distinguishable (by colour)
Version 0.3, 1999-1-15
- added PostScript output
- added third gain scale, "log"
- added buttons in the window
- added plotting of gain as slices in coordinate planes
- very small mouse dragging is treated as clicking
- corrected handling of output files which sweep over only one angle
- man page added, thanks to Joop Stakenborg, PA3ABA.
Version 0.4, 1999-5-30
- fixed bug in PostScript output
- added handling of GS cards
- "long" options now need -- instead of -
- fixed colours on 1bpp screen
Version 0.5, 1999-6-13
- added double buffering support: this reduces flickering by drawing in
a separate 'Pixmap' instead of on the screen
- postscript now uses a private dictionary
- more general NEC output reading routine
- uses hinted motion events to speed up dragging
- motion+first button now rotates entire gain pattern, motion + second
button rotates simplified gain pattern (quicker)
- fixed bug in linear gain scale
- removed -q/--quick option
- added a (too?) simple icon to appear when xnecview is iconified
The first 5 of these changes were essentially contributed by
Alan Bain, M1BXV; thanks!
Version 0.6, 1999-7-4
- added display of wire numbers
- added display of location of excitations and loads
- added display of 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' at axes
- configuration is now separate .h file
- corrected "ARRL style" gain scale (now 0.89 per 2 dB, as per the "ARRL
Antenna Book"; tnx Don, VE3HUR)
- added handling of GM cards with non-zero ITS
- xnecview no longer exits when supplied with incorrect input
- an error message is printed when writing postscript fails (tnx Alan Bain)
- standard X command line options like -geometry now work
Version 1.0, 1999-7-25
- GW cards lacking the wire radius are now accepted
- GC cards now produce a warning
- added a bit of text to the postscript output
(tnx to Don VE3HUR for testing and remarks resulting in the above changes)
- iconifying now uses own icon again (didn't in 0.6)
Contributions, comments and bug reports are welcome, please send them to
any of these addresses:
Internet e-mail: pa3fwm@amsat.org
Amateur packet-radio: PA3FWM @ PI8DAZ.#TWE.NLD.EU
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