Introduction

Welcome to the user manual for VirtualBow!

This manual will help you understand how to use this software for designing bows, simulating their performance and interpreting the results. Like many other simulation tools, VirtualBow consists of three distinct components: A model editor, a solver and a result viewer.

• The model editor is the most important part of the application from a user's perspective. Here you can create, edit and save your designs, which will be stored as .bow files.

• The solver does the actual work of running a simulation. It takes a .bow file, performs the required calculations and saves the results as a .res file.

• Finally, the result viewer is used to open and visualize the .res files produced by the solver. Here you can view the simulation results and evaluate your designs.

The layout of this manual follows this parition. The coming chapters will therefore explain each of these components in more detail, starting with the model editor. For support, feedback or to get the latest version of the software please visit the project's website at

https://www.virtualbow.org/

Note: Please keep in mind that VirtualBow is still under development. The simulation results are still largely unverified and should not be taken at face value yet, although many users already reported good agreement.