A very useful software application for plotting electric field lines and equipotential surfaces around point charges.
Version: 1.8Franklin is a very useful software application for plotting electric field lines and equipotential surfaces around point charges.
License: Free
Operating System: Mac OS X
Homepage: my.vbe.com
Developed by:
Franklin has evolved over the years from versions intended for Mac OS 9 and earlier. Franklin 1.1.7 did not use OpenGL and it's plots could not be rotated, however its other features are nearly the same as later versions. Franklin 1.1.9 was the first version to use OpenGL, this in the form of a second separate window in which the graph could be rotated in real time. All input done with mouse clicks still had to be done in the original graph window (orthographic and not rotated).
The Mac OS X version of Franklin was totally rewritten in Apple Computer's Cocoa IDE but kept major features from version 1.1.9. One of the main changes is that the two separate graph windows of Franklin 1.1.9 have been combined into a single window which uses Apple's version of OpenGL.
Like Franklin 1.1.9 this window must be using an orthographic projection and must not be rotated in order to accept input from mouse clicks. This was done to ensure that if for instance the cursor was at screen coordinates (x,y) when the mouse was clicked OpenGL would display this point at (x,y) also. Generally if we were using a projective transformation or had rotated the graph this wouldn't be true and result in confusion.
Franklin is intended as freeware for science education. It is not however meant for commercial use or distribution without my permission.