Changelog

The changelog provides a compressed history of the Magpylib development since its publication in 2019.

Unreleased - YYYY-MM-DD

5.1.0 - 2024-10-09

• Fixed a bug where the magnetization arrow graphical representation would be anchored badly after rotation (#805)

• Added units_length input to the show function to allow displaying axes with different length units. This parameter can be set individually for each subplot. (#786)

• Small documentation and Readme improvement. Change naming from “explicit expression” to “analytical expression” as described in (#794).

• Fixed Pvyvista plot bounds not fitting on animation. Also enables zoom feature which was not working until now. (#798)

• Fixed canvas layout being modified even when user-provided. Also added a new canvas_update parameter to choose the layout behavior (by default "auto") (#799)

• Improved documentation (#766, #802)

• Documentation now includes force computation, which is still in a separate package “magpylib-force”, but which will be integrated into Magplyib in the coming months. (#787)

5.0.4 - 2024-06-18

• Added support for Numpy 2.0 (#795)

• Fixed markers legend not being suppressible (#795)

5.0.3 - 2024-06-03

• Fixed subplot object properties propagation (#780)

• Migrate to pydata-sphinx-theme and fix docs search function (#762)

• Fixed docs version-switcher (#782)

5.0.2 - 2024-05-21

• Fixed a display issue causing incorrect calculation of view box limits (#772)

• Removed support for python 3.8 and 3.9 by now following the scientific-python.org support timelines (#773)

• Fixed CI testing with newer backend versions (#774)

• Updated site notice to mention the awarded “small development grant” by NumFocus. (#758)

• Fixed inaccurate citation year for Yang publication (#764, with thanks to @feldnerd for the contribution!)

5.0.1 - 2024-04-12

• Fixed a bug where getBHJM of a Collection would produce one extra dimension (#753)

• Fixed a bug where the legend of a deeply nested Collection would be wrong (#756)

5.0.0 - 2024-03-13

⚠️ Breaking Changes ⚠️

• The Magpylib inputs and outputs are now in SI Units.

• The magnetization parameter has also been redefined to reflect the true physical magnetization quantity in units of A/m.

Other Improvements

• The magnetization parameter is now codependent with the new polarization parameter that is the physical magnetic polarization (#712) in units of Tesla

• Added getM (magnetization) and getJ (polarization) top level functions and class methods reminiscent of getB and getH.

• The in_out (inside/outside) parameter is added to all field functions (getBHJM) to specify the location of the observers relative to the magnet body in order to increase performance (#717, #608)

• Review of documentation and adding a few requested things (#685, some of #659)

• Added mu0 at top level as magpylib.mu_0. The value of mu0 is taken from scipy and follows the 2019 redefinition. All internal computations now include this new value. (#714, #731)

• The core level now includes only the true bottom level implementations. (#727)

• As Matplotlib graphic representation of 3D objects is terrible, we decided to go back to “arrow” graphic default mode when graphic backend is “Matplotlib”.(#735)

4.5.1 - 2023-12-28

• Fixed a field computation issue where H-field resulting from axial magnetization is computed incorrectly inside of Cylinders (#703)

4.5.0 - 2023-12-13

• Added optional handedness parameter for Sensors (#687)

• Renaming classes: Line→Polyline, Loop→Circle. Old names are still valid but will issue a DeprecationWarning and will eventually be removed in the next major version (#690)

• Rework CI/CD workflows (#686)

4.4.1 - 2023-11-09

• Fixed deployment release (#682)

• Fixed axis mismatch on show/hide of sensor arrows (#679)

• Documentation improvements (#673)

4.4.0 - 2023-09-03

• Included self-intersection check in TriangularMesh (#622)

• Fixed incorrect edge case of TriangularMesh reorientation (#644)

• Discontinuous segments in current.Line are now accepted and correctly treated as separate lines (#632, #642)

• Objects can now be displayed with missing dimension and/or excitation (#640)

• Added magnetization and current arrows sizemode styling option (absolute or scaled) (#639)

• Collection objects now also have a default description when displayed (number of children) (#634)

• Many minor graphic improvements (#663, #649, #653)

• legend style option (#650)

• Changed unit naming in text to comply with DIN Norm 641 (#614)

• Improved documentation now boasting a contribution guide, a news-blog, an example and tutorial gallery, a getting started section and many other improvements (#621, #596, #580)

• Improved numerical stability of CylinderSegment, (#648, #651)

4.3.0 - 2023-06-25

• New TriangularMesh magnet class added to conveniently work with triangular surface meshes instead of large collections of individual Triangle objects. The TriangularMesh class performs important checks (closed, connected, oriented) and can directly import Pyvista objects and for convex hull bodies. (#569, #598).

• Added magnetization coloring for matplotlib backend (#597)

• New automatic backend behavior, set to a dynamic default auto depending on the current environment and the given canvas, if provided. (#617)

• Drop python 3.7 support, following python life cycle. (#616)

4.2.0 - 2023-01-27

• (Re)introducing the powerful misc.Triangle class that can be used to compute magnetic fields of arbitrarily shaped bodies by approximating their surface with triangular faces. (#568)

• Introducing the magnet.Tetrahedron class as a derivate of the Triangle class. (#289)

• Change Pyvista plotting defaults when using show(backend='pyvista') to fit better with other libraries. (#551)

• Added code of conduct attempting to align with NumFocus standards (#558)

• Improved Loop field computation in terms of performance and numerical stability (#374)

• Added magnetization.mode style to allow showing magnetization direction for any backend (#576)

• Documentation changes:

  • Correct conda install command

  • Integration of Triangle and Tetrahedron

  • Changed example gallery substructure

  • Rewritten and added some passages

• Fixed some bugs, minor performance increase, internal refactoring

4.1.2 - 2023-01-15

• Fixed wrong magnetization arrow direction for some edge cases (#570, #571, #572)

• Fixed cryptic getB/getH error message (#562, #563)

4.1.1 - 2022-08-11

• Fixed inverted y and z axes colors for sensor representations (#556)

4.1.0 - 2022-08-08

• Field computation getB/getH now supports 2D pandas.dataframe in addition to the numpy.ndarray as output type. (#523)

• Internal getB/getH refactoring. The direct interface with 'Line' source argument now also accepts 'vertices' as argument. (#540)

• Complete plotting backend rework to prepare for easy implementation of new backends, with minimal maintenance. (#539)

• New Pyvista plotting backend (#548)

• Improvements on the documentation

4.0.4 - 2022-06-09

• Exclude redundant properties with _all suffix in the .describe() method (#534)

• Docstring improvements (#535)

4.0.3 - 2022-05-13

• Fixed copy order Bug (#530)

4.0.2 - 2022-05-04

• Fixed magnetization coloring with mesh grouping (Plotly) (#526)

• Allow float color quadruples (#529)

4.0.1 - 2022-04-29

• Graphic performance update for Plotly when showing a large number of objects. (#524)

4.0.0 - 2022-04-14

This is a major update that includes

• API changes

• New features

• Improved internal workings

Magpylib class changes/fixes:

• Box class renamed to Cuboid. (#350)

• Circular class renamed to Loop. (#402)

• New CylinderSegment class with dimension (r1,r2,h,phi1,phi2) with the inner radius r1, the outer radius r2 the height h and the cylinder section angles phi1 < phi2. (#386, #385, #484, #480)

• New CustomSource class for user defined field functions (#349, #409, #411, #506)

• All Magpylib objects can now be initialized without excitation and dimension attributes.

• All classes now have the parent attribute to reference to a collection they are part of. Any object can only have a single parent.

• All classes have the describe method which gives a quick object property overview.

Field computation changes/fixes:

• New computation core. Added top level subpackage magpylib.core where all field implementations can be accessed directly without the position/orientation interface. (#376)

• Direct interface functions getBdict and getHdict (previously getBv and getHv) are now integrated into getB and getH. See docs for details (#449)

• Generally improved field expressions: (#374)

  • Negative dimension input taken as absolute when only positive dimensions are allowed.

  • Scale invariant field evaluations.

  • Special cases caught within 1e-15 rtol and atol to account for numerical imprecision with positioning (e.g. object rotation).

  • Suppress Numpy divide/invalid warnings. return np.nan as (0,0,0) (e.g. on magnet edges or on line currents) and allow return of np.inf.

  • New closed form implementation for Cylinder with diametral magnetization is much faster (100-1000x) and numerically stable for small r. (#404, #370)

  • Improved numerical stability of current loop field. Now 12-14 correct digits everywhere. (#374)

  • Fixed Collection of Lines field computation error. (#368)

• Object oriented interface fixes and modifications:

  • Improved performance of getB and getH.

  • Fixed array dimension wrongly reduced when sumup=True and squeeze=False in getB and getH functions (#425, #426)

  • Minimal non-squeeze output shape is (1,1,1,1,3), meaning that a single pixel is now also represented. (#493)

• With the new kwarg pixel_agg it is now possible to apply a Numpy function with reducing functionality (like mean, min, average) to the pixel output. In this case, it is allowed to provide getB and getH with different observer input shapes. (#503)

Major graphic output overhaul:

• Styles:

  • All object now have the style attribute for graphical output customization. Arguments can be passed as dictionaries, class attributes or with underscore magic.

  • Style defaults stored in magpylib.defaults.display. (#291, #396)

  • Possibility to add a custom 3D-model to any object. (#416)

• display now called show, to be more in-line with standard graphic backends. Functionality completely overhauled to function with styles. (#453, #451)

  • New show arguments replace previous ones. Some are now handed over through styles.

    • axis ➡️ canvas

    • show_direction ➡️ style_magnetization_show

    • show_path ➡️ style_path_show (#453)

    • size_sensors&size_dipoles ➡️ style_size

    • size_direction ➡️ style_magnetization_size

    • new zoom option

• Plotly as new optional graphic backend. 🚀 (#396, #353)

  • plotly is now automatically installed with Magpylib. (#395)

  • Interactive path animation option in show. (#453)

  • Automatic Matplotlib <-> Plotly style input translations (#452, #454)

• Misc:

  • Added matplotlib pixel display (#279)

  • Sensors have their own color now (#483)

  • UI fix empty display (#401)

  • Error msg when show is called without argument (#448)

New documentation:

• Completely new structure and layout. (#399, #294)

• Binder links and live code. (#389)

• Example galleries with practical user examples

• Guidelines for advanced subclassing of Collection to form complex dynamic compound objects that seamlessly integrate into the Magpylib interface.

Geometry interface modification

• Added all Scipy Rotation forms as rotation object methods. (#427)

• move and rotate inputs differentiate between scalar and vector input. Scalar input is applied to the whole path vector input is merged. (#438, #444, #442)

• move and rotate methods have default start='auto' (scalar input: start=0-> applied to whole path, vector input: start=len_path-> append) instead of start=-1.

• move and rotate methods maintain collection geometry when applied to a collection.

• Improved position and orientation setter methods in line with move and rotate functionality and maintain Collection geometry.

• Removed increment argument from move and rotate functions (#438, #444)

Modifications to the Collection class

• Collections can now contain Source, Sensor and other Collection objects and can function as source and observer inputs in getB and getH. (#502, #410, #415, #297)

• Instead of the property Collection.sources there are now the Collection.children, Collection.sources, Collection.sensors and Collection.collections properties. Setting these collection properties will automatically override parents. (#446, #502)

• Collection has it’s own position, orientation and style. (#444, #461)

• All methods applied to a collection maintain relative child-positions in the local reference frame.

• Added __len__ dunder for Collection, so that Collection.children length is returned. (#383)

• - operation was removed.

• + operation now functions as a + b = Collection(a, b). Warning: a + b + c now creates a nested collection !

• Allowed Collection, add and remove input is now only *args or a single flat list or tuple of Magpylib objects.

• add and remove have some additional functionality related to child-parent relations.

• The describe method gives a great Collection tree overview.

Other changes/fixes:

• Magpylib error message improvement. Msg will now tell you what input is expected.

• Magpylib object copy method now works properly (#477, #470, #476)

• Defaults and input checks (#406)

  • magpylib.Config parameters are now in magpylib.defaults. (#387)

  • config.ITERCYLINDER is now obsolete. The iterative solution replaced by a new analytical expression.

  • config.inputchecks is removed - input checks are always performed.

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3.0.5 - 2022-04-26

• fix docs build

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3.0.4 - 2022-02-17

• fix Collection operation tests

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3.0.3 - 2022-02-17

Fixed

• When adding with Source + Collection to create a new Collection, the original now remains unaffected (#472)

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3.0.2 - 2021-06-27

• Update release version and license year (#343, #344)

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3.0.1 - 2021-06-27

• Added deployment automation (#260, #296, #341, #342)

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3.0.0 - 2021-06-27

This is a major update that includes

• API changes

• New features

• Improved internal workings

Added

• New orientation property:

  • The orientation attribute stores the relative rotation of an object with respect to the reference orientation (defined in each class docstring).

  • The default (orientation=None) corresponds to a unit rotation.

  • orientation is stored as a scipy.spatial.transform.Rotation object.

  • Calling the attribute source.orientation returns a Scipy Rotation object R.

  • Make use of all advantages of this great Scipy package:

    • define R.from_rotvec() or R.from_quat() or …

    • view with R.as_rotvec() or R.as_quat() or …

    • combine subsequent rotations R1 * R2 * R3

• Sensor pixel:

  • The new Sensor(position, pixel, orientation) class has the argument pixel which is (0,0,0) by default and refers to pixel positions inside the Sensor (in the Sensor local CS). pixel is an arbitrary array_like of the shape (N1, N2, …, 3).

• Geometry paths:

  • The position and orientation attributes can now store paths in the global CS. For a path of length M the attribute position is an array of the shape (M,3) and orientation is a Rotation object with length M. Each path position is associated with a respective rotation.

  • Field computations getB() and getH() will evaluate the field for all source path positions.

  • Paths can be set by hand position = X, orientation = Y, but they can also conveniently be generated using the rotate and move methods.

  • Paths can be shown via the show_path=True kwarg in display(). By setting show_path=x the object will be displayed at every x’th path step. This helps to follow up on object rotation along the path.

  • All objects have a reset_path() method defined to set their paths to position=(0,0,0) and orientation=None.

• Streamlining operation with all Magpylib objects:

  • All objects (Sensors, Sources, Collections) have additional direct access to

    • .display() method for quick self-inspection.

    • getB() and getH() methods for fast field computations

    • __repr__ attribute defined and will return their type and their id.

• Other new features:

  • The top-level Config allows users to access and edit Magpylib default values.

Changed

• Renamed modules:

  • .magnet and .current sub-packages were moved to the top level.

  • The .moment sub-package was renamed to .misc and was moved to the top level.

  • The .vector sub-package was completely removed. Functionalities are mostly replaced by new top-level function getBv().

  • The .math sub-package was removed. Functionalities are mostly provided by the scipy - Rotation package.

• Renamed functions:

  • The top level function displaySystem() was renamed to display().

• Renamed attributes (parameters cannot be initialized in their short forms anymore):

  • angle and axis are replaced by orientation

  • dimension is replaced by diameter for Loop and Sphere classes.

  • angle&axis are replaced by orientation.

• Modified rotate methods:

  • The class methods .rotate(angle, axis, anchor) have been replaced by a new .rotate(rotation, anchor, increment, start) method where rotation ist a scipy Rotation object.

  • The original angle-axis-anchor rotation is now provided by the new method .rotate_from_angax(angle, axis, anchor, increment, start, degrees).

    • The argument axis can now easily be set to the global CS axes with "x", "y", "z".

    • The anchor argument anchor=0 represents the origin (0,0,0).

    • angle argument is in units of deg by default. It can now be set to rad using the degrees argument.

  • The “move”-class method is now .move(displacement, increment, start)

  • Rotation and move methods can now be used to generate paths using vector input and the increment and start arguments.

  • All operations can now be chained (e.g. .move_by().rotate().move_to())

• Miscellaneous:

  • getB(pos) now takes single AND vector position arguments. If a vector is handed to getB it will automatically execute vectorized code from the vector module.

  • In a finite region (size defined by Config.EDGESIZE) about magnet edges and line currents the field evaluates to (0,0,0) instead of (NaN, NaN, NaN). Special case catching reduces performance slightly.

Updated

• Improved Computation:

  • The Box field is now more stable. Numerical instabilities in the outfield were completely removed.

• Updated Field computation interface

  • There are two fundamental arguments for field computation:

    • The argument sources refers to a source/Collection or to a 1D list of L sources and/or Collections.

    • The argument observers refers to a set of positions of shape (N1, N2, …, 3) or a Sensor with pixel shape (N1, N2, …, 3) or a 1D list of K Sensors.

  • With Magpylib3 there are several ways to compute the field:

    1. source.getB(*observers)

    2. sensor.getB(*sources)

    3. magpylib.getB(sources, observers)

    • The output shape is always (L, M, K, N1, N2, …, 3) with L sources, M path positions, K sensors and N (pixel) positions.

    • Objects with shorter paths will be considered as static once their path ends while other paths continue.

    4. magpylib.getBv(**kwargs) gives direct access to the field formulas and mostly replaces the getBv_XXX() functionality of v2. All inputs must be arrays of length N or of length 1 (statics will be tiled).

  • While getBv is the fastest way to compute the fields it is much more convenient to use getB() which mostly provides the same performance. Specifically,the new getB() automatically groups all inputs for combined vectorized evaluation. This leads to a massive speedup when dealing with large Collections of similar sources.

  • In addition to getB, the new getH returns the field in kA/m.

Removed

• the kwarg niter=50 does not exist anymore for the Cylinder field computation. The functionality was completely replaced by the config setting Config.ITER_CYLINDER=50.

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2.3.0b - 2020-01-17

Changed

• Improved performance of getB for diametral magnetized Cylinders by 20%.

• getB of Line current now uses vectorized code which leads to massive performance enhancement.

• IMPORTANT: position arguments of getBv functions have been flipped! First comes the source position POSm THEN the observer position POSo!

Added

• completed the library vector functionality adding magnet Cylinder, moment Dipole, current Loop and Line. This includes adding several private vectorized functions (e.g. ellipticV) to mathLib_vector, adding respective tests and docs examples.

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2.1.0b - 2019-12-06

Added

• Docstrings for vector functions.

• displaySystem kwarg figsize

• bringing documentation up to speed

Fixed

• init file bug

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2.0.0b - 2019-11-29

This is a major update that includes

API changes New features Improved internal workings

Changed

• Restructuring

  • displaySystem is now a top-level function, not a Collection method anymore.

  • getBsweep and multiprocessing options have been completely removed, this functionality should be overtaken by the new vector functionality which uses the numpy native vectorized code paradigm. If mkl library is set (test by numpy.show_config()) numpy will also automatically use multiprocessing. Code parallelization at magpylib level should be done by hand.

• Docstrings are adjusted to work better with intellisense. (Problems with *.rst code)

• public rotatePosition() is now called angleAxisRotation(), former private angleAxisRotation is now called angleAxisRotation_priv().

• Major rework of the documentation and examples.

Added

• Performance computation trough vector functionality included in new top-level subpackage “vector”

• Vectorized versions of math functions added to “math” subpackage

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1.2.1b0 - 2019-07-31

Changed

• Optimized getB call (utility integrated)

• Improved Documentation (added Sensor class v1)

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1.2.0b0 - 2019-07-16

Added

• Sensor Class

  • This allows users to create a coordinate system-enabled Sensor object, which can be placed, rotated, moved, and oriented.

  • This object can take the B-Field of a system (be it single source or a Collection) with the added functionality of having its own reference in the coordinate space, allowing users to easily acquire relative B-Field measurements of a system from an arbitrarily placed sensor object.

  • Sensors in a list may be displayed in the Collection.displaySystem() by using the sensors keyword argument.

• Added content to the __repr__ built-in to all source classes for quick console evaluations, simply call a defined object in your Python shell to print out its attributes.

Changed

• Edge cases in field calculations now return a proper RuntimeWarning instead of console prints

Fixed

• Unused imports and variables

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1.1.1b0 - 2019-06-25

Added

• Changelog

Changed

• Change Collection.displaySystem() not having the block=False setting for matplotlib’s pyplot.show() by default, this meant that outside interactive mode calling this function would hang the script until the plot was closed.

  • If for some reason you want to block the application, you may still use Collection.displaySystem()’s suppress=True kwarg then call pyplot.show() normally.

  • This should cause no API changes, if you have problems please notify us.

Fixed

• Fixed multiprocessing enabled Collection.getBsweep() for lots of objects with few positions causing great performance loss. This functionality now behaves as expected for the use case.

• Fixed Collection.displaySystem()’s drawing of Dipole objects in external axes (plots) using the subplotAx kwarg crashing the application. This functionality now behaves as expected for the use case.

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1.1.0b0 - 2019-06-14

Added

• Implemented one new kwarg for Collection.displaySystem():

  subplotAx=None Draw into a subplot axe that already exists. The subplot needs to be 3D projected

  This allows for creating side-by-side plots using displaySystem. Figure information must be set manually in pyplot.figure() in order to not squash the plots upon sub plotting.

  Click here for Example

  Code: https://gist.github.com/lucasgcb/77d55f2fda688e2fb8e1e4a68bb830b8

  Output:

Changed

• getBsweep() for Collections and Sources now always returns a Numpy array

• Zero-length segments in Line sources now return [0,0,0] and a warning, making it easier to draw spirals without letting users do this unaware.

Fixed

• Added a workaround fix for a rotation bug we are still working on.

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1.0.2b0 - 2019-05-29

Added

• MANIFEST.in file containing the LICENSE for bundling in PyPI

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1.0.1b0 - 2019-05-28

Added

• Issue and Pull Request Templates to Repository

• Continuous Integration settings (Azure and Appveyor)

• Code Coverage Reports with Codecov

Removed

• Support for Python 3.5 and under.

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1.0.0b0 - 2019-05-21

The first official release of the Magpylib library.

Added

• Source classes:

  • Box

  • Cylinder

  • Sphere

  • Loop Current

  • Current Line

  • Dipole

• Collection class

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The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.