#TMCGROUT
!Graphics parameters
#dXAxiesUnit 0
#dXAxiesName
#PointDrawFlag 1; 1;
#nXType 0
#nYType 2
#Xmin 40
#Xmax 49.8
#Ymin -0.0011383
#Ymax 0.00128368
#nAFlagX 1
#nAFlagY 1
#EditorFileName  winword.exe
#sDrawTextFont Times New Roman;-37;0;0;0;400;0;0;0;1;
#sDrawTextColor 0;
#sDrawBckgrdColor 16777215;
#sDrawAxiesColor 0;
#sDrawGridColor 0;
#sDrawPointColor 0; 16711680; 0; 75; ...
!Graphics data
!file name : E:\WORK\Source\SAMPLE_R\TEST_MET\EPS4\rths25.soc
!Data file for draw S-matrix graphics
!SFileName GraphicsName DrawFlag Input1 Mod1 Input2 Mod2
rths25.s rths25.s 1 1 1 2 1

!SFileName GraphicsName DrawFlag Input1 Mod1 Input2 Mod2
rths25.s   rths25.s     1        1      1    2      1

#TMCGROUT
...
#nXType 0
#nYType 1
#Xmin -3.40282e+038
#Xmax -3.40282e+038
...
#nAFlagX 0
#nAFlagY 0
...
horns.s horns.s 1 1 1 1 1

SMT 102

 TAMIC-RTH V 2.00
2 TAMIC_soft group. TAMIC Rt-H Planar Analyzer. 2000

 Tamic Output Signal Viewer
. E:\WORK\Source\SAMPLE_R\TEST_MET\EPS4\rths25.s

User manual — the TMCGROUT program (TMCGROUT.exe)

TMC Suite package. This manual is written in plain language and is intended for a user seeing the program for the first time. All menu and button names are given as they appear in the program (the interface is in English), with a translation and explanation next to them.

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1. Purpose of the program

TMCGROUT (the executable TMCGROUT.exe) is a program for viewing graphs of scattering characteristics in the frequency domain. In simple terms, it builds graphs where:

• the horizontal axis (X) shows the frequency (GHz by default);
• the vertical axis (Y) shows a selected characteristic of an element of the scattering matrix (S-matrix) — for example, the magnitude |S|, the phase in degrees or radians, the losses in decibels, or the VSWR.

The scattering matrix (S-matrix) describes how a device (for example, a planar structure computed by the kernel tmc_rth or tmc_rtx) reflects and transmits a signal as a function of frequency. TMCGROUT takes the computation result — an S-matrix file — and draws it as a clear graph.

What the program can do:

• open ready-made graph documents (.soc files) or scattering-matrix files (.s) directly;
• show several curves at once on one field (for example, different S-matrix elements or results from different files);
• change the scale (zoom in/out, auto-fit by axes), shift the visible area;
• configure the colors of the background, grid, axes and the curves themselves, as well as the label font;
• print the graph and save the display settings in the .soc document itself.

Note: TMCGROUT only displays already-computed data. The computation itself is performed by the package's compute kernels (tmc_rth for H-polarization, tmc_rtx for X-mode). How to obtain a .s file is described in section 7.

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2. Launching and opening data

How to launch the program

1. Find the file TMCGROUT.exe (after the build it is in dist/win32/bin or dist/win64/bin).
2. Launch it with a double click.
3. On the first launch the program maximizes to full screen. If any files were opened before, TMCGROUT will try to automatically open the last of them (the "recent files" list is stored in the Windows registry).

Which file to open

TMCGROUT works with two file types (details in section 7):

To open a file:

1. Menu File → Open…, or click the "Open" button on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+O.
2. In the dialog select the desired .soc or .s file.
3. The graph appears in the document window.

If you open a .s file, a .soc document with the same name will be created next to it (it stores the display settings). In the future it is more convenient to open the .soc.

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3. The main window

The main window is a multiple-document window (MDI): several windows with different graphs can be open inside it at once.

The window consists of four zones:

1. Menu bar (top) — all program commands, grouped into sections (File, Edit, View, Config, Window, Help). Details in section 5.
2. Toolbar — a row of icon buttons for the most frequent actions. Details in section 4.
3. Graph area (center) — here the axes, the coordinate grid and the curves themselves are drawn. The mouse works over this area: you can select a rectangle to zoom in, and a double click fits the scale.
4. Status bar (bottom) — two panels: - the left one — the coordinates of the point under the mouse cursor (the frequency value on X and the characteristic value on Y); - the right one — the name of the current characteristic type (what is plotted on the Y axis: magnitude, phase, losses or VSWR).

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4. The toolbar

The toolbar duplicates the most frequent menu commands as buttons. If the toolbar is not visible, enable it via View → Toolbar.

The buttons go from left to right. Below is the purpose of each.

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5. The menus

Below, every item of every menu is explained: what it does, its keyboard shortcut, and what happens after you select it.

5.1. The File menu

When saving, the display settings (colors, font, line types) are additionally remembered in the Windows registry and used as defaults for new documents.

5.2. The Edit menu

"Inputs" and "modes" (Input1/Mod1, Input2/Mod2) are the address of an S-matrix element: which input with which mode is connected to which output. Details in section 7.

5.3. The View menu

The View → Zoom submenu

With auto-scale enabled on an axis, the program fits the limits to the minimum/maximum of the data itself, and manual limits on that axis are ignored (the Xmin/Xmax or Ymin/Ymax fields in the Viewport dialog become unavailable).

The View → Translate submenu

Shifting is convenient when you need to "scroll" the graph left/right/up/down without changing the scale.

5.4. The Config menu

The Config → Color submenu

The Graphics item opens a table of 16 line samples. By clicking the desired sample, you choose the color, the style (solid, dashed, dotted) and the thickness of that line.

5.5. The Window menu

5.6. The Help menu

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6. Typical workflows

Below are step-by-step instructions for the most frequent tasks.

6.1. Open a .soc document

1. Menu File → Open… (or Ctrl+O, or the "Open" button on the toolbar).
2. Select a file with the .soc extension (for example, rths25.soc).
3. The graph is built automatically. If the curve has "run off" beyond the window, press the auto-scale buttons Auto X size and Auto Y size.

6.2. Add another characteristic (Add characteristics)

1. Open a document (see 6.1).
2. Menu Edit → Add characteristics (Ctrl+A) or the "Add characteristic" button.
3. In the dialog select the desired .s file.
4. The new curve is added to the document. To view/configure the list of all curves, open Edit → Characteristics (Ctrl+D).
5. In the table you can turn the display of each curve on and off (the output flag), and set the inputs/modes of the desired S-matrix element.

6.3. Adjust the scale (Zoom / Auto X / Auto Y)

There are three ways to change the scale:

• With the mouse — hold the left button and draw a rectangle around the graph area of interest; when you release the button the program zooms in on the selection. A double click in the graph area fits the scale back.
• With the toolbar buttons — Zoom + / Zoom − (both axes), Zoom +X/−X, Zoom +Y/−Y (one axis).
• Auto-scale — View → Zoom → Auto X size (Alt+X) and Auto Y size (Alt+Y). The program fits the limits so that the whole curve is visible. This is the fastest way to "fit" the graph into the window.

6.4. Shift the graph (Translate)

1. Menu View → Translate.
2. Select Change Xmax, Xmin (shift along the frequency) or Change Ymax, Ymin (shift vertically).
3. In the nested submenu, choose to increase or decrease the desired limit. The graph shifts by a step of about 10% of the range.

The same effect is produced by the shift buttons on the toolbar (#18–21).

The shift only works with auto-scale disabled on the corresponding axis: with auto-scale enabled, the limits are determined automatically from the data.

6.5. Change the colors and the characteristic type

Background / grid / axes / point color: 1. Menu Config → Color → Background / Grid / Axies / Point. 2. In the standard dialog select the color → OK.

Curve color, style and thickness: 1. Menu Config → Color → Graphics. 2. In the opened table click the sample of the desired curve. 3. Select the color, the line style (solid/dashed/dotted) and the thickness → OK.

What is plotted on the Y axis (magnitude, phase, losses, VSWR) and the X-axis units: 1. Menu View → Viewport (Ctrl+H) or the "Window parameters" button. 2. In the dialog select the Y characteristic type and the X-axis unit (Hz/kHz/MHz/GHz), optionally set the limits and the label format → OK.

6.6. Print the graph

1. First set the scale and appearance the way you want to see them on paper.
2. (Optional) Menu File → Print Preview — check how the graph will fit on the page.
3. Menu File → Print… (Ctrl+P) or the "Print" button.
4. Select the printer and click OK.

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7. Input data formats

TMCGROUT works with two file formats: the .soc document and the .s scattering-matrix file.

7.1. The .soc document file

.soc is a text TMCGROUT document file. It can be opened with any text editor. It stores the display settings and the list of curves, but does not store the data itself — the data is taken from the .s files referenced by the document.

File structure (using the real file samples/SAMPLE_R/TEST_MET/EPS4/rths25.soc):

#TMCGROUT
!Graphics parameters
#dXAxiesUnit 0
#dXAxiesName
#PointDrawFlag 1; 1;
#nXType 0
#nYType 2
#Xmin 40
#Xmax 49.8
#Ymin -0.0011383
#Ymax 0.00128368
#nAFlagX 1
#nAFlagY 1
#EditorFileName  winword.exe
#sDrawTextFont Times New Roman;-37;0;0;0;400;0;0;0;1;
#sDrawTextColor 0;
#sDrawBckgrdColor 16777215;
#sDrawAxiesColor 0;
#sDrawGridColor 0;
#sDrawPointColor 0; 16711680; 0; 75; ...
!Graphics data
!file name : E:\WORK\Source\SAMPLE_R\TEST_MET\EPS4\rths25.soc
!Data file for draw S-matrix graphics
!SFileName GraphicsName DrawFlag Input1 Mod1 Input2 Mod2
rths25.s rths25.s 1 1 1 2 1

Line-by-line breakdown:

Display parameters (#Key):

Units. In the example rths25.soc there is #nXType 0 — meaning the X axis is in GHz, and the limits #Xmin 40, #Xmax 49.8 mean the range 40…49.8 GHz. The parameter #nYType 2 means the Y axis plots the magnitude |S|.

Curve description (a data line). The column format is given in the comment above it:

!SFileName GraphicsName DrawFlag Input1 Mod1 Input2 Mod2
rths25.s   rths25.s     1        1      1    2      1

So in the example an S-matrix element is built that links input 1 (mode 1) and input 2 (mode 1) — this is a "transmission" characteristic (transfer between two inputs).

For comparison — a simple document samples/SAMPLE_R/horns.soc:

#TMCGROUT
...
#nXType 0
#nYType 1
#Xmin -3.40282e+038
#Xmax -3.40282e+038
...
#nAFlagX 0
#nAFlagY 0
...
horns.s horns.s 1 1 1 1 1

Here #nYType 1 — the Y axis is losses in dB; the limits are set as -3.40282e+038 (this is "not set" / the smallest possible float number); the S-matrix element is input 1 (mode 1) input 1 (mode 1), that is, reflection from the first input.

If the file-name expression is enclosed in curly braces {...}, it means not a single file but an expression graph (computation of a curve by a formula over several .s files). This is an advanced feature; details are in the API documentation (docs/api/viewers/tmcgrout.md, the CTMCGrExpression class).

7.2. The .s scattering-matrix file

.s is a file with the scattering-matrix data itself: for a set of frequencies it stores complex values of the S-matrix elements. This is the result of a compute kernel (tmc_rth or tmc_rtx).

By structure the file is mixed — a text header plus numeric data. The beginning of the file (example rths25.s):

SMT 102

 TAMIC-RTH V 2.00
2 TAMIC_soft group. TAMIC Rt-H Planar Analyzer. 2000

 Tamic Output Signal Viewer
. E:\WORK\Source\SAMPLE_R\TEST_MET\EPS4\rths25.s

The .s file is not meant for manual editing — it contains numbers written in binary. It should be opened through TMCGROUT, not a text editor.

7.3. How to obtain .s and .soc files

A .s file is created by a compute kernel when computing a planar structure. In brief (details are in docs/api/kernels/planar_rt_h.md and the kernel manuals):

1. Prepare an input template file .tpl (the structure topology, parameters, the output section). In the OUTPUT section, output of the S-matrix must be enabled (the SMATRIX flag) and the output file name set.
2. Launch a compute kernel: tmc_rth.exe (for H-polarization) or tmc_rtx.exe (for X-mode), open the .tpl in it and run the computation (Run All).
3. On completion the kernel writes a .s file with the scattering matrix (the name is set in the output section).
4. Open the resulting .s in TMCGROUT — the program will automatically create a .soc document next to it. Then configure the appearance and save (Ctrl+S).

Ready-made examples for practice are in samples/SAMPLE_R/ (for example, TEST_MET/EPS4/rths25.s + rths25.soc).

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8. Possible problems and their solutions