EMANIM

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Animations of electromagnetic waves

EMANIM is an application for visualizing electromagnetic waves. Its main features are:

• Live, three-dimensional presentation
• Interactive rotation and zooming with the mouse
• Continuous animation of wave propagation
• Any or both of two waves and optionally their superposition can be displayed
• Vectors of the electric field are shown at two planes intersecting the path of the light
• Wave parameters such as type of polarization, wavelength, amplitude and phase difference can be interactively varied
• To visualize the interaction of light and matter, a piece of material can be placed into the path of the light
• Properties of this piece of material such as length, extinction coefficients and indices of refraction can be interactively varied
• User-configurable colors

EMANIM can help the user understand a wide range of phenomena related to electromagnetic waves, from the simplest such as a single wave in vacuum to the most complex such as circular dichroism. Its features that promote learning are:

• 19 predefined parameter sets representing important physical phenomena
• A brief explanation of each phenomenon is displayed whenever the user selects a phenomenon from the menu
• Phenomena from the following basic categories:
  • Types of polarization (linear, circular)
  • Superposition of waves
  • Interference of waves
  • Interaction of light and matter (absorption, refraction)
  • Light in anisotropic materials (dichroism and birefringence)
  • Light in optically active materials (circular dichroism and birefringence)
• Hints are displayed to suggest parameters to vary in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon at hand
• Five predefined views to show the phenomena from the most optimal "camera angles"

Furthermore:

• EMANIM is platform-independent: runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, etc.
• It requires a screen resolution of 1024x768 or greater
• EMANIM is public domain software, i.e. it can be used, modified, copied and distributed by anyone without any restrictions and conditions
• Both its source code and various binaries are distributed free of charge
• Currently, it is available in two languages: English and Hungarian

Download EMANIM

Note: This is version 1.01, made available on September 12, 2006. It is a minor update (bugfixes only) to the 1.0 version. In addition, the Python code has been made compatible with the latest version of VPython.

Installation instructions:

• Windows: Download and run the provided installer
• Other operating systems: Download the source code and the program icon, and put them in the same directory. You need to have Python and Visual Python installed on your computer. If that requirement is fulfilled, you can just run the source code as a script, using the Python interpreter.

Feedback

Please send comments, suggestions, bug reports, etc. to the author, András Szilágyi (e-mail: szia [at] enzim [dot] hu).

See also

Electromagnetic waves and circular dichroism: an animated tutorial