1Blurb:: Number of field objective functions 2Description:: 3This keyword describes the number of field objective functions. 4A field function is a set of related response values collected over a range of 5independent coordinate values which may or may not be specified by the user. 6For example, voltage over time would be a field function, where voltage is 7the \c field_objective and time is the independent coordinate. 8Similarly, temperature over time and space would be a field response, where the 9independent coordinates would be both time and spatial coordinates such as (x,y) or (x,y,z), depending on the application. 10The main difference between scalar objectives and field objectives is that for field data, we 11plan to implement methods that take advantage of the correlation or relationship between 12the field values. 13 14Note that if there is one \c field_objective, and it has length 100 (meaning 100 values), then 15the user's simulation code must return 100 values. 16Also, if there are both scalar and field objectives, the user should specify 17the number of scalar objectives as \c scalar_objectives. If there are only field objectives, 18it still is necessary to specify both \c objective_functions = NN and \c field_objectives = NN, 19where NN is the number of field objectives. 20 21Objective functions are responses that are used with optimization 22methods in Dakota. Currently, each term in a field objective is added 23to the total objective function presented to the optimizer. For example, 24if you have one field objective with 100 terms (e.g. a time-temperature trace 25with 100 time points and 100 corresponding temperature points), the 100 temperature values 26will be added to create the overall objective. 27 28Topics:: 29Examples:: 30Theory:: 31Faq:: 32See_Also:: responses-objective_functions-scalar_objectives 33