Depends what you're doing and how maths-y you are since you need to tell it the equations you want to solve, but FEniCs is a very good general purpose FEM code, and you can couple it to Bempp for BEM stuff.
Of course, you have to interact with the solver through JSON files and provide your own initial mesh. They recently added adaptive refinement but I don't know how well it works. Given what Ansys charges for an HFSS seat though can't complain!
Relatedly, is there a good open replacement for ADS/Microwave Office? I've seen QUCS/QUCS studio but don't know if there's others out there? Last I looked, the more general SPICE solvers don't support S-param blocks and transmission lines, which are pretty critical.
Does HFSS visualize the field in real-time or a user needs to set the geometry/parameters then precalculate the field and only then be able to explore the visualization?
Say, if I wanted to see immediate effects of changing an incidence angle, could I just "scroll" the incidence parameter?
HFSS does a typical FEM matrix solve then displays the results. It is often used for very complex or large problems, so as far as I know it isn’t set up for instant display of results. That would be a neat feature for small problems.
What’s the latest on open/free solvers to replace HFSS/CST?
Depends what you're doing and how maths-y you are since you need to tell it the equations you want to solve, but FEniCs is a very good general purpose FEM code, and you can couple it to Bempp for BEM stuff.
Best one I know of as a direct replacement is AWS PALACE: https://awslabs.github.io/palace/stable/
Of course, you have to interact with the solver through JSON files and provide your own initial mesh. They recently added adaptive refinement but I don't know how well it works. Given what Ansys charges for an HFSS seat though can't complain!
Wow, is there a Kicad script for generating input for this tool based on a pcb layout? That would be awesome!
Relatedly, is there a good open replacement for ADS/Microwave Office? I've seen QUCS/QUCS studio but don't know if there's others out there? Last I looked, the more general SPICE solvers don't support S-param blocks and transmission lines, which are pretty critical.
OpenEMS has a lot of mindshare in that area. Not sure how effective it is at replacing proprietary packages like HFSS, though.
Does HFSS visualize the field in real-time or a user needs to set the geometry/parameters then precalculate the field and only then be able to explore the visualization?
Say, if I wanted to see immediate effects of changing an incidence angle, could I just "scroll" the incidence parameter?
HFSS does a typical FEM matrix solve then displays the results. It is often used for very complex or large problems, so as far as I know it isn’t set up for instant display of results. That would be a neat feature for small problems.