My project will serve as an educational tool to teach electromagnetics to high school and undergraduate students. The purpose is to give students a feel for electromagnetic phenomena and give them the control to set-up and observe their own experiments. This will be a joint project for the classes CS 6393 (Visualization) and CS 8113 (Animation). This proposal outlines the project description and specifies which components apply to each class.

The goal of this project is to create a user-friendly, interactive, 3-D graphical package for displaying point charges, their interaction with magnetic fields, and possibly the generation of electric fields. The user will be able to interactively change the number of point charges (up to approximately five), their charge, and their beginning location within a bounding box. They will also be able to control the direction and magnitude of a uniform magnetic field. The animation will run real-time with iterative calculations. In order to make the program interactive and user-friendly, the software will be programed with SGI Inventor.

The Visualization components will include the display of the magnetic and electric fields. This may be accomplished with vector lines, translucent surfaces, clipped opaque surfaces or a combination of these. The fields must be displayed in such a way that clutter does not detract from the learning experience. If it appears to be useful, force vectors will also be added between the point charges. The accuracy of the mathematical model (point charge interaction and field generation) will also be considered part of the Visualization content. All these features will have toggle buttons.

The Animation components will include the rendering and animation of the point charges and box. This will involve presenting the box in such a way that the charges are observable, the box is rotatable, and the camera's view is not obstructed. Conveying a sense of charge magnitude and sign to the user will also be considered part of the Animation content. Since humorous animation may actually detract from learning, a toggle button will be available to select further animation capabilities. This may include deformation of the spheres upon colliding with the walls; facial features on the spheres such as eyes, eyebrows, and a mouth; changes in facial expressions conveying pain or surprise upon impact; and, if time permits, an animation of the individual spheres "charging up" and moving into their initial positions.