An antenna radiates in all directions. Therefore, 3D patterns are required to describe the
gain individually for each direction. For some applications the radiation in the horizontal
plane and the radiation in the vertical plane is sufficient. These patterns are called 2x2D
patterns.
Figure 1. Horizontal pattern (left) and vertical pattern (right) of a half wave dipole.
Figure 2. 3D view of the antenna pattern of (half wave) dipole.
It is obvious that accurate computations are only possible with 3D patterns. AMan includes, therefore, a module to convert 2x2D patterns to 3D patterns.
Antenna patterns can be defined in any coordinate system. Spherical coordinate systems are most commonly used to define antenna patterns.
