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Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Getting Started
3. Usage
4. Authors

Introduction

The aim of this project was to fully implement the functionality of LT Spice from a command line interface (CLI). The motivations to build this project originated in irritation of LT Spice's poor cross platform compatibility and interest in developing a deeper understanding in the internal workings of a circuit simulator. This project also seeks to provide stronger support for standard output formats compared to LT Spice and make it simpler and easier to use the output of a simulation in another program. Our in-built plotter also aims to be more customisable and clearer, than the default graph-plotter packaged with LT Spice. Finally the team thought that, of all the tasks offered to us, development of a circuit simulator covered the greatest number of topics taught this year, making it an excellent opportunity to cement our knowledge. Topics required for the task: C++ programming, linear algebra, analysis of circuits and design of circuits.

Getting Started

System Requirements

Operating System

• Linux: Ubuntu 18.04 or higher
• MacOS: Catalina 10.15 or higher

Terminal Shell

• bash (recommended)
• sh
• zsh

CMake

CMake is used for building and managing dependencies. To install CMake, click here. To confirm if CMake is installed correctly on your machine, run:

cmake --version

The version of CMake installed should come up. CMake 3.16.X is required!

Python (Only for the graphing tool)

To use the in built graphing tool, Python 3 is required. To install python, click here. To confirm if Python 3 is installed correctly on your machine, run:

python3

An interactive shell should come up showing the python version. Python 3.7.X is required!

Once Python 3 has been correctly installed, navigate to the root directory and run:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

To install the necessary packages required for the graphing tool to work.

Installing

To install the simulator, navigate to the build directory and run the installation script:

cd build
./install.sh

And follow the on screen instructions.

Usage

-i              <file>          path to input netlist
-o              <dir>           path to output directory
-f              <format>        specify output format, either csv or space
-p              <list>          plots output, space separated list specifies columns to plot
-s              <path>          saves graph output as html at specified location, requires -p
-c                              shows names of columns in output file, blocks -p and -s i.e. doesn't plot/save result
-h                              shows this help information

Usage: simulator -i file [ -ch ] [ -o dir ] [-p list] [ -s path ] [ -f format ]

Examples:

Plot Specific Columns:
    simulator -i test.net -p 'V(N001) V(N002)'

Plot All Columns and save result as interactive HTML:
    simulator -i test.net -p '' -s result.html

Generate result and check names of columns in netlist:
    simulator -i test.net -c

Authors

• Jonah Lehner
• Samuel Adekunle
• Neel Dugar