What is Robin Hood Solver?

Robin Hood Solver is an advanced and fast tool for electrostatic modeling, with high accuracy and low memory usage.

What are the main features of Robin Hood Solver?

• stand-alone software package
• can be used interactively, through GUI or via command line
• comes with elementary visualization support
• extremely fast

• low memory usage (the memory requirements grow linearly and depend only on the number of elements in calculation)
• Robin Hood method – proprietary implementation of highly efficient iterative BEM method for surface charge calculation
• agile customer support

Why is it so fast?

Robin Hood Solver uses novel BEM method called Robin Hood method, developed by the scientists at Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb, Croatia. The method is very efficient and it treats electrical charge as an elementary unit, from which all the other measures (like potential) are calculated.

What exactly do you mean with “extremely low memory requirements”?

The memory use in Robin Hood Solver grows linearly with the number of elements included in calculation. So, if the theoretical calculation with 1 element requires 1 byte of memory, a calculation with 1,000 elements will require 1,000 bytes. Contrary to this, in most of the other tools available on the market, memory requirements grow exponentially with the number of elements – if a theoretical calculation with 1 element requires 1 byte of memory, a calculation with n elements will require n^3 bytes of memory. This becomes a problem even with modestly complex calculations. Robin Hood Solver, on the other hand, can solve even complex models running on the standard off-the-shelf notebook computer. Some of our users are using it in exactly this way – see the testimonials.

What are the main areas of use?

All areas of electrostatic modeling, including electrostatic capacitance tomography, electrostatic spectroscopy, MEMS development, electrostatic painting, electrostatic printing or clamping, design regarding electron or ion optics systems, rough (fractal) surfaces analysis, design of supercapacitors and nanocapacitors and so on.

Can you list some of the companies and institutions which are using Robin Hood Solver?

Robin Hood Solver is currently in use by the researchers at the Brown University, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Ruđer Bošković Institute. See the testimonials.

Is there a scripting support in Robin Hood Solver?

The scripting is fully supported with integrated Lua interpreter. Additionally, all projects can be exported as Lua scripts.

Can I use Robin Hood Solver as a plug-in for Mathematica or Matlab?

Not directly at this time, but you can use it as an external tool. Contact us if you are interested in details.

What are visualization capabilities of Robin Hood Solver?

Robin Hood Solver comes with integrated OpenGL design environment with full 3D capabilities, enabling you to create and display complex 3D models and visualize calculation results thanks to powerful post-processing tools. See the gallery for screenshots.

What operating systems are supported?

Robin Hood Solver currently runs on Microsoft Windows XP and above, OS X and most distributions of Linux.

What are the system requirements?

• Pentium-class x86 processor or higher (Core-class x86-64 multi-core processor recommended)
• 1 GB of RAM (4 GB recommended)
• 400 MB of disk space
• Operating system:
  • Windows XP or higher (Windows 7 64-bit recommended) or
  • OS X 10.7 or higher or
  • Linux-based distribution with kernel 2.4.0 or higher
• display resolution of 1024×768 pixels (1920×1080 recommended)
• OpenGL-compatible graphics adapter

Can I run Robin Hood Solver under virtual machine?

Yes, provided that the virtual machine meets minimum system requirements. Please note that you will need a separate license for each machine (virtual or physical) running the Robin Hood Solver.

Are you working on a new version? Why should I buy now, instead of waiting?

Because we offer upgrade pricing which actually makes your total investment lower if you buy the current version now and we release the next version within six or twelve months from the date of your purchase.

When you buy Robin Hood Solver, you are entitled to receive next version with a significant discount. In that case, your investment is safe even if we release new version shortly after you buy the current one. The upgrade prices are:

The discount policy above is for commercial licenses; the discounts for academic licenses are calculated as follows: (price of the new version – price of the current version)*0.7 (first six months) and (price of the new version – price of the current version)*0.85 (6-12 months).

In both cases, your total investment is lower than the full price of the new version. Also, when you upgrade, you are entitled to keep and use both old and new version, provided that they are used on the same computer.

Please note that we do not publish the release schedule for Robin Hood Solver.

What are the differences between a commercial license and an academic license?

Please see our comparison chart for details.

Is there a demo version?

Yes. You can request a demo here.

Can I get a discount for multiple licenses?

Yes, quantity discounts are available. See pricing or contact us for details.

What kind of support do you offer?

We offer e-mail support and support with web-based forum for our customers.

Can I get Robin Hood Solver on physical media?

Yes, upon request.

Can I pay by bank transfer?

Yes. This is the preferred method.

Can I pay by check?

Yes. Contact us for details.

Can I pay by credit card?

Not at the moment, but we are working on this.