[Ktechlab-devel] Improving the code

[Alan Grimes]

Mathias Scroccaro wrote:
> Hi , my name is Mathias , I'm a Brazilian university student. I'm
> almost finished my course in electronic engineering and I want to
> engage in a master's program . I would like to help improve the
> program code and would like to know the best area to study the master
> who could contribute positively in the program circuit algorithms.
> Congrats for the already developed code, Mathias


My e-mail program is having trouble with this message for some reason,
my apologies for formatting issues. =\

In response to your question, many long years ago I went through the
code, focusing on the simulator, to improve the code, I was expecting a
gui re-write so I left most of the gui code alone.

Once again, it's been years since I've spent time with the code. To the
best of my recollection, the biggest simulator issue is reviewing the
models.

Lets say you had a circuit with a generator powering a resistor and a
chain of two resistors. So you have two current branches, you need to
compute two currents, and then you can derive the third current from
that, So you have three current branches... Current nodes are voltage
points so you have three of those two, the top of the generator, the
bottom of the generator, and the node between the resistors...

The branch with the stack of resistors is interesting because you only
need to compute the current of that branch once. So you need to figure
out where you need to compute currents and select the best part to use
as a current probe.

Then you need to select which model to use, a model that just computes
voltage or one with current too. Several years after working on the
code, I bought a book on circuit simulation... So yeah, you have to go
through all those equations and check everything.

Ktechlab uses a kinda crude numeric integration approach that's almost
good enough for low frequency work.

Another interesting idea is to look at the crude matrix library that I
had written for a university project and then put in ktechlab because it
was cleaner than what was there, and see whether an OpenCL-based
approach has any benefits.


Now if you want to talk about Ktechlab 2.0 then you are talking about
solving differential equations to figure out filter characteristics and
stuff, probably using one of the more traditional back-ends which are
much better developed.

-- 
IQ is a measure of how stupid you feel.

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