Readme.txt

There are generally three computational EM techniques or algorithms; The Finite Difference, Finite Elements and Method of Moments. Here is an excerpt from Computational Electromagnetics by Bondeson (/trunk/Docs/Books):

These are finite differences (FD) (usually in the time domain), the finite element method (FEM), and the boundary element method (BEM), which is usually referred to, for historical reasons, as the method of moments (MoM). Finite difference methods are more or less straightforward discretizations of Maxwell’s equations in differential form, using the field components, or the potentials, on a structured grid of points as unknowns. Finite differences in general, and the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method in particular, are very efficient and require few operations per grid point. The FDTD is one of the most widespread methods in CEM, and it can be applied to a large variety of microwave problems. One drawback of finite difference methods is that they work well only on uniform Cartesian (structured) grids, and typically use the so-called staircase approximation of boundaries not aligned with a the grid. Finite element methods in which the computational region is divided into unstructured grids (typically triangles in two dimensions and tetrahedra in three dimensions) can approximate complex boundaries much better, but are considerably slower in time-domain calculations. The FEM is mainly used for time-harmonic problems, and it is the standard method for eddy current calculations. The MoM discretizes Maxwell’s equations in integral form, and the unknowns are sources such as currents or charges on the surfaces of conductors and dielectrics. This method is advantageous for problems involving open regions, and when the current-carrying surfaces are small. The MoM is often applied to scattering problems.

Implementation of computational algorithms on GPUs is an additional resource. Currently NVidia's CUDA based simulations projects and related documents have been added.