System Modeling Data

System modeling refers to a family of applications for Type 5000 data. This file format was designed to aid the analysis of distributed objects moving in three-dimensional space and the propagation of electromagnetic energy. The following applications were accommodated by the original design of the Type 5000 file structure:

The details of working with system modeling data are beyond the scope of this document, but explaining the underlying concepts is not. In particular, it is important to understand how establishing a hierarchy of reference frames simplifies the analysis of complex, time-varying geometries and how/why "frame of reference" and "coordinate system" mean different things in this context.

Command support for Type 5000 files is relatively weak in NeXtMidas' factory-supplied option trees, but X-Midas contains a large number of commands for manipulating system modeling data. This enables construction of distributed system modeling applications that combine NeXtMidas graphics with X-Midas computation.