A FLOSS Visual EM Simulator for 3 D Antennas

This paper introduces the FLOSS Free Libre Open Source Software [VEMSA3D], a contraction of "Visual Electromagnetic Simulator for 3D Antennas", which are geometrically modeled, either exactly or approximately, as thin wire polygonal structures; presents its GUI Graphical User Interface capabilities, in interactive mode and/or in handling suitable formed antenna data files; demonstrates the effectiveness of its use in a number of practical antenna applications, with direct comparison to experimental measurements and other freeware results; and provides the inexperienced user with a specific list of instructions to successfully build the given source code by using only freely available IDE Integrated Development Environment tools—including a cross-platform one. The unrestricted access to source code, beyond the ability for immediate software improvement, offers to independent users and volunteer groups an expandable, in any way, visual antenna simulator, for a genuine research and development work in the field of antennas, adaptable to their needs.