Plotting 3D Far Field Patterns

The far-field can be shown as a 3D plot by going to Results > Plot Far-Field Pattern > 3D Plot in the main menu. This command executes the AN-3D Pattern application, where the radiation pattern is plotted in a 3D view showing the radiation lobes.

The power density, directivity, gain, total E-field, E-theta (vertical) and E-phi (horizontal) linearly polarized field components as well as the E-right and E-left circularly polarized field components can also be plotted by choosing these commands under Plot in the AN-3D Pattern main menu, Fig 1. In the case of plane wave excitation, the Radar Cross Section (RCS) will be plotted.

The 3D graph can be rotated and moved by dragging the mouse with the left button pressed. Move the mouse wheel to zoom the graph. The main menu of AN-3D Pattern has options for changing the units of the magnitudes, showing a color bar, and exporting data.

Note

• If discrete sources were used as the excitation, the plotted far-field is the total field.

• If an incident plane wave was used as the excitation, the plotted far-field is the scattered field.

Click on Edit > Preferences in the AN-3D Pattern main menu to display the Preferences dialog box, Fig. 2, where different options can be chosen for the colored surface and mesh of the radiation lobes, Fig. 3. The wire structure can be shown superimposed to the radiation pattern by selecting the Wires option in the Show box. We can also control the scale of the graph and display the main axes.

The far-field pattern for a given frequency can also be tabulated going to Results > List Far-Field Pattern in the AN-SOF main menu.