The Educational Link between Technical Interpretation and 3-D Vector Field Visualization of Time-marching Electromagnetic Fields

With unabated advances in GPU computational speed, memory capacity and associated video throughput that is capable of displaying vector fields over all computational space with little impact on simulation time, comes a new paradigm for the way electromagnetic waves are taught to students at both graduate and postgraduate level. Electromagnetic waves can now be visualized real-time in 3D with waves propagating in space through very complex geometries as time marches forward. The experience is even more powerful when 3D display technology is available, but if not then rotation can be used to aid interpretation in three dimensions. Viewing the motion of waves through space either as intensity representations or as colour coded orientation of electric and magnetic field can lead to powerful design insights and interpretation of design flaws that would otherwise be difficult to find. This presentation of teaching software using the CFDTD method running on GPUs will give some practical examples to illustrate the technology.