Download It
description
Transcript of Download It
Using Open Source Softwarein Electrical Engineering Courses
Anthony RichardsonUniversity of Evansville
Why Use Open Source?
Multiplatform - Windows, Linux, Macintosh. Users are free to choose their own operating system.
Reduced software costs for students and the university.
Access to source code helps to guarantee that file formats will not be made obsolete.
Encourages ethical behavior with regard to the copying and use of software.
Office Software
There are several open-source software packages available, but the most popular, cross-platform, open-source suite is probably StarOffice-OpenOffice.org. Word processing, Spreadsheet, Drawing, Image
Processing, and Presentation components. Full featured. High Quality. Very good MS Office import/export capability. Windows, Linux, Solaris (Mac port in progress)
OpenOffice Writer
OpenOffice Calc
Mathematical Plotting
Although a number of packages are available, Gnuplot is very well-known and has been ported to several platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac). 2D and 3D capability. Over 50 graphics output formats. Very fine-grained control over graph contents. Command-line or script file input. (Well suited as a
back-end for web based (CGI) graphics.)
Example Gnuplot Script
The last four lines will produce the basic graph. Note the complex number and function support.set nokey; set format x "%8.0f"; set mxtics 10; set grid; set grid mxticsset xlabel "Frequency (Hz)"set ylabel "Magnitude (dB)"set y2label "Phase (degrees)"set title "Frequency Response of Lowpass Filter"set label "Phase " at 10000,-22 rightset label "Magnitude" at 100000,-22 rightset logscale x; set xrange [1:1e6]set angles degrees; set y2ticsf0 = 10000; H(f) = 1./(1.+{0,1.}*f/f0)plot 20*log10(abs(H(x))), arg(H(x)) axes x1y2
Example Gnuplot Output
Gnuplot 3D Example
Web-Based Bode Plotter
Web-Based Bode Plotter
Numerical Analysis
Scilab, RLaB, and Octave are available and have similar capabilities. All are available for Windows and Linux.
Scilab appears to have the most extensive set of toolboxes and also includes the Scicos dynamic system simulator.
Example Scilab Session
Scilab Graphics
Scicos System Simulation
Computer Algebra
Maxima is available for both Windows and Linux. It does not have as many features as Mathematica,
Maple, or Derive, but is still very useful for the types of problems encountered in undergraduate EE courses.
Example Maxima Session
Maxima Graphics
Programming
The cygwin tools and libraries provide a UNIX environment for Windows.
Includes compilers/interpreters for C, C++, Fortran, Java, Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Python.
A large number of UNIX tools are included. Support for UNIX system calls as well as
Windows console and graphical applications.
Circuit Simulation
Although there are a couple of open-source circuit simulation programs, nothing seems to be available for both Windows and Linux (yet!).
The open-source Wine software can be used to run many Windows applications under UNIX (without a Windows OS). Wine is still in development, but the I have successfully run the MicroCap simulator (student version 6.0) under UNIX using Wine.
MicroCap Under Wine