RadioBanter - View Single Post - Antenna programming tool/language/compiler/preprocessor?

Jim Lux · June 18th 07, 06:47 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

wrote:
Hello Dave,

thanks for your hint. I know the problem with perl scripts. What I am
searching is, that no text or symbol replacement or calculating
symbols is done on your source nec file. I am searching for a compiler/
pre-processor, that makes from source file (antenna model) a
compatible nec file (still left in symbolic 4nec2-format).
I am sick off, to code many symbolic lines of nec code. It is boring
and difficult, when your model gets complex and has much more
segments.
Therefore I started with my pre-processor few month ago, that makes
the code for me automatically. It supports primitive object and
complex structures. It also let you "to program" your antenna model.
But the most advantage of letting the nec file symbolic, you can
optimize the antenna parameters.
I tried and constructed many antenna models and wont miss the
optimizer tool from 4nec2.

I am wondering, that nobody made such a tool till now.

Aziz

What you are looking for is essentially a way to specify a mechanical
design, which would then be processed into an appropriate description
for a modeling code to use.

For trivial antennas, it would be pretty easy to have a text language to
describe things. You could have macros and such. However, at a basic
level, all you're doing is exchanging the somewhat cryptic NEC cards for
something more readable.

As soon as it gets more complex, you're looking at defining your own
shape/geometry definition language, and that's quite a chore.. and has
been done to boot.

A better approach is to use an off the shelf drawing package of some
sort, and build a parser that takes the mechanical drawing and turns it
into a EM model. In the commercial world, there's a lot of activity for
this sort of gridding process.

Typically you'd start with something like an IGES or DXF file.