Cif2mat Convertor and Mat3d Matlab Toolkit

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Version 0.12

News and Announcements

November 10, 1999.
A new release (v0.12) of the Matlab Mat3d toolkit and the cif2mat converter is now available, and includes several new Mat3d functions. See the version information for details.

This software is free for educational, non-commercial use, anyone wishing to use all or portion of the Cif2mat convertor and/or the Matlab Mat3d Toolkit for commercial proposes please contact me.

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Process Flow

Mat3d process flow

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Convertor (a.k.a Cif2mat),

Features:

• Written in plain C and uses the standard C libraries. It has been succesfully compiled on unix machines with gcc and on WinNT with MS Visual C++ (makefiles for both platforms are included). It should be fairly simple to port it to other platforms if neccessary.
• Reads industrial standard CIF as input.
• Boolean layer operations implemented using the GPC (generic polygon clipper) library.
• applies topology informmation to the flat, 2-dimensional layout.
• Separates spatially disjointed boxes. And group spatially connected boxes into structures.
• Linkage information are obtained automatically for structures connected via hinges.

Limitations:

• Only handles Box in the CIF file
• Only handles manhattanized layout in CIF file
• Need to include designated layer during the layout process to be extracted and used by the convertor.
• Requires flattened CIF design

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Matlab Mat3d Toolkit

2-D layout, 3D prespective, structure manipulation, collision detection

Features:

• 3D viewing with topology information of the design. Easy to obtain different perspective viewing.
• Able to selected and manipulate the structures/objects displayed.
• Rotational and translational movements of structures/objects.
• Define raysouces, and capable of raytracing off the pre-defined (during layout process) reflective sufaces.
• Rudimentry collision detection.
• The input file to the toolkit is easily readable and customizable.

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Some Sample Plots

• Patrick Chu's Corner Cube Reflector. More of CCR with Mat3d and [SEM of the real CCR].

  assembled CCR	raytracing

• Matt Last's micro mirror (more of it) and [SEM of the micro mirror].

  2D layout	raytracing

  Note: the pivot/rotation information for the torsional hinge in this design is included by hand.

• Lih-Yuan Lin's XYZ stage (more of it).

  2D layout	raytracing

• Conceptual bug-on-a-chip.
  

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On-Line Documentation

• Compiling cif2mat
  
• User's Guide for cif2mat
  
• M3D File Format Description
  
• Mat3d User's Guide
  
• Mat3d Fucntion Reference Guide (available soon).

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Publication

MSM2000, "3D MEMS Design via Matlab Interactive Plots" (PDF).

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Download

Version 0.12

By downloading the Cif2mat and Mat3d package, you are agreeing to use them for strictly non-commercial purpose or purposes. The convertor and the Mat3d toolkit are available in one package as follow:

• DOS zip file with Win32 cif2mat executable.
• Gziped-tarfile with HP-UX 10.20 pre-compiled cif2mat binary.
• Gziped-tarfile, no pre-built binary (faster download).

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Problem Report & Questions

Please send questions and problem report to Nanping Lo. I will try to address them in a timely fashion.

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2000-04-10