Analytic solutions Graphics Important modifications Installation and running MMP solver New features PFD solver System requirements
No special installation is required as the entire OpenMaXwell software in contained within the single executable file OpenMaXwellaax.exe (where aa=09, 10, … (year) and x=A, B, C, …). For creating AVI movies, the DLL AVI.DLL is required. It is recommended to place it on the same directory as the OpenMaXwellaax.exe file.
OpenMaXwell uses OpenGL together with the GL utilities. Therefore, the following DLLs are required: OpenGL32.DLL, GLU32.DLL, GLUT32.DLL. These DLLs should be placed either in a system folder (for example C:\WINNT or C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) or in the folder where you have placed OpenMaXwellaax.EXE. The GLUT32.DLL can be downloaded from http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html. It has been observed that other processes slow down dramatically when one process runs under GLUT. Since the official GLUT providers did not want to modify GLUT32.DLL, you should take advantage of the alternative GLUT32.DLL contained in OpenMaXwell. It is important to know that some prominent software (e.g. some versions of Matlab) modifies essential parts of GLUT. As a consequence, no application that uses the standard GLUT will run as soon as such a software is installed. If you encounter problems running OpenMaXwell with OpenGL, copy GLUT32.DLL from the OpenMaXwell and copy it to the directory where MAXaax.EXE is.
There are several way to run an executable:
Use the Windows Explorer to locate OpenMaXwellaax.EXE. Go to the directory where you have copied the file OpenMaXwellaax.EXE. Double click the MAXaax program icon. The program will start with default settings and the working directory will be the directory where the executable is located.
When you have installed a shortcut to MAXaax.EXE on your desktop, double click the shortcut icon. The program will start with default settings and the working directory will be the directory specified in the Shortcut tab of the shortcut Properties. To change the working directory, right click the shortcut icon. From the menu that appears, choose Properties. A new menu will pop up. Select the Shortcut tab and specify the directory name in the Start in box.
At the DOS command prompt, type x:\path…\OpenMaXwellaax [in-file inf], where aa=09,10, … (year), x= A, B, C, …, y denotes the drive, path… the path to the directory where OpenMaXwellaax.EXE is stored (together with avi.dll and glut32.dll). The program will start and the working directory will be the directory from where you ran the command. To change the working directory, use the CD command of DOS and run OpenMaXwell as indicated above when you are in the desired directory. Note that OpenMaXwellaax.EXE has two optional command line arguments. The command line argument in-file is an input file. When the command line arguments in-file and inf are missing, OpenMaXwell will initialize the defaults and wait for your instructions. When the second command line argument (inf) is missing, in-file indicates the name of the project file to be executed as soon as OpenMaXwellaax.EXE is started. When the second argument is a string starting with the three characters INF, OpenMaXwellaax.EXE will run in "slave mode" an infinite loop. In the loop, it will do the following:
1) Read the ASCII input file in-file. This file may be a standard project file (extension PRO) or an ASCII text file that contains the file name of the project to be computed and additional (optional) data for setting some movie variables. When in-file is missing on the working directory, OpenMaXwellaax.EXE waits until in-file is present. When in-file is a project file, OpenMaXwell (aa=12 or bigger) reads the ASCII text file OPT.txt, which contains the number of parameters, the number of fitness values and a list of lower and upper parameter limits (see directive WRIte FITness). Furthermore, it creates an appropriate data exchange file OPT.nnn that is shared with a parallel optimizer, such as OptPES.
2) The project specified by or inside in-file is opened and the project is computed. When in-file is a project file, this happens as soon as the optimizer has sent a parameter vector to OPT.nnn. The project must then contain appropriate "WRIte FITness" directives, which write the fitness values computed with OpenMaXwell to the exchange file OPT.nnn.
3) The in-file is deleted if it is not a project file.
4) Step 1 is repeated if the in-file is not an project file. Otherwise, OpenMaXwell waits until the optimizer has overwritten the exchange file OPT.nnn (i.e. step 2 is repeated).
The second command line argument INF therefore allows you to run OpenMaXwellaax.EXE as a "slave" on any machine, whereas you create new projects or new parameter sets on a different machine. When you have specified a project to be computed, send all files that define the project to the working directory of the "slave" machine, create an in-file and send it also to the working directory of the "slave" machine. When in-file is no longer present on the working directory of the "slave" machine, you know that the project has been computed and you can fetch the corresponding files. Afterwards, you may send another project to the "slave" machine. Note that you can also write a "master" program that creates projects to be solved by the "slave". Such a "master" program might be an optimization process.
The parameters sets defined in the in-file or in the exchange file OPT.nnn are copied on the movie variable vector, i.e., the first parameter overwrites V0, the second parameter V1, and so on. This allows you to modify the existing model using movie directives instead of creating a new one.
When you run the executable file of OpenMaXwell, an application window with three modeless (floating) dialogs (Tools and draw, Cursor position, and Info and movie directives) should pop up. Then a Question dialog pops up, which asks you: Read previous project? If you answer in the negative, the default project (2D electrostatics, coaxial condensor) will be loaded. Otherwise you are asked: No computation of field values after reading files? The reason is the following: In order to save disk space, you may not have solved the field values when you were saving the project and you might wish that OpenMaXwell recomputes the field values right at the beginning. Since this takes time and should be done only after the model has been defined and computed by the MMP solver, you should answer Yes in most cases. After this, the Set Project data file to be read! dialog pops up, which allows you tho select the previously defined project.
Finally, you are asked: Display OpenGL window? For 3D graphics, you may benefit from OpenGL. To add an OpenGL window, press the Yes button. Since it may happen that the Open GL color index mode - that is optimal for creating AVI movies - does not run correctly on your computer you are then asked: Try using color index mode? Answer in the affirmative. I an error occurs or if the OpenGL window is black, restart OpenMaXwell and answer in the negative this time. The OpenGL window is a floating window. You may place it anywhere on your screen and resize it. The contents shown in the OpenGL window depends on what is specified in the OpenGL window dialog and in the OpenGL graphics dialog. OpenGL window can be manipulated by the mouse when the pointer is within the window. In order to open the OpenGL window dialog, press the second mouse button while the cursor is in the
OpenGL window. Note that drawing 3D objects in the standard graphics window is more cumbersome but allows you to obtain nicer representations - with two exceptions: OpenGL uses some color interpolation scheme that may look ugly and some cheap hiding procedure. Hiding and color representations in the standard 2D graphics windows of OpenMaXwell ist better thain in the OpenGL window. The contents of the standard graphics window depends on what is specified in various dialogs, namely the Window, Field, Function, Boundary dialogs, etc.The third window type that is always available is the Info window that display useful info while you are running OpenMaXwell tools. Note that precisely one Info window is present all the time.
You may work with more than a single standard graphics window (Use Add window from the Window menu.) and you may work with or without the OpenGL window. The OpenGL window can only be opened right after starting OpenMaXwell. When you close it, OpenMaXwell will exit.
These modeless dialogs Tools and draw, Cursor position, and Info and movie directives are may not be closed. All other dialogs are modal and should be closed when no longer needed. Some of them must be closed before you can continue working.
The Intel math kernel libraries allow very fast and efficient matrix solutions on multi core processors. These are only used for the QR solver of MMP. If you run several OpenMaXwell jobs in parallel on a multi core machine, it may be reasonable to put each OpenMaXwell process on a different core. In order to do this, open the Windows Task Manager; select the Proceeses tab; Right click a OpenMaXwell process, select Set Affinity... and specify the CPU to be used for its execution.
Responsible for this web page: Ch. Hafner, Computational Optics Group, IEF, ETH, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Last update 17.02.2014