MagNet, ElecNet, and ThermNet provide the user with an extremely easy-to-use interface for building, solving and analyzing three-dimensional models. Much of the real power comes from the programming interface that has been built into each of the products. All three applications implement Microsoft's ActiveX Automation mechanism, which allows it to communicate directly with programs such as Word, Excel, MATLAB® and MathCad, to name but a few. Furthermore, this capability allows MagNet, ElecNet, and ThermNet to work with any programming environment that also implements ActiveX Scripting and OLE Automation, such as Visual Basic Script, Java Script, Perl, etc. This capability provides a level of power in the system which is currently unavailable anywhere else. By programming in one of these languages, the user can access most of the basic functions in any of our software applications.
Thus, it is possible to write a program in Visual Basic Script which can draw objects on the screen. The device at the right, for example, is assembled by a script that constructs a unit square on the screen and extrudes it into a copper bar of length 3 units. The script is set up to create a bar with a unit cross-section; however, you can make a change to the width and height variables and update the bar instantly.
See the script that generated this object For those of you who have programmed in Basic before, MagNet, ElecNet, and ThermNet provide extensions to the Basic programming language that allows you to manipulate objects within the applications. The scripting capabilities allow you to create objects, to control the meshing process, to set up the solution run and, finally, to control the post-processing aspects. When this capability is added to the internal parameterization provided by our software (where every item in the database is considered to be a parameter), an exceedingly powerful programming environment is constructed for both creating custom devices and optimizing them.
If a program is required to design a particular device, such as an induction machine, a script can be developed which can customize MagNet or ElecNet such that it becomes an induction machine package. As an example (see below), the diagram shows a complete 4-pole, 3-phase winding which was developed using a Visual Basic Script. This structure is fully parameterized and has an interface which allows the user to specify the winding in terms that should be familiar (i.e., the number of poles, the number of phases, the slots per pole per phase, etc). From this information, the entire winding is automatically constructed.
Once a script has been built, it can be interfaced to a Form - this operates in a manner similar to a dialog box and allows you to enter data in a user friendly and graphical manner.
