I would like to thank Prof. MIHAI IORDACHE and Prof. ANCA IONESCU from "Politehnica" University for their guidance and help and for the excellent materials provided. Without them this paper would not be quite so complete.
The author of the Field Expert pogrom and of this paper is Dan Alin Muresan, first year student in the same university. Contact the author at his e-mail address
muresan@cco.caltech.edu muresand@pcnet.pcnet.ro
The program uses the Euler numerical integration method to generate lines of force; starting from a given point, the line of force is followed pixel by pixel in both directions until a charge is "hit" or it runs away to infinity. Equipotential surfaces are traced using their definition, because they are closed curves and errors in the Euler lines method, which tend to cumulate, would make them open ! The equipotential is assumed to be smooth (with no sharp turns). See source code for more details.
The program is written in C++. The Windows interface is based on the Borland C++ 4.0 Object Windows Library. Electrostatic field computations are implemented in separate C++ classes, so the code is reusable for other applications. The program has been tested extensively under Windows 3.1 and Windows '95.