An outdoor propagation scene may involve several buildings modeled by impenetrable surfaces and an underlying flat ground or irregular terrain surface. An indoor propagation scene may involve several walls modeled by thin penetrable surfaces, a ceiling and a floor arranged according to a certain building layout. You can also build mixed scenes involving both impenetrable and penetrable blocks. Your sources and observables can be placed anywhere in the scene. Your transmitters and receivers can be placed outdoors or indoors. A complete list of the various elements of a propagation scene is given in the '''Physical Structure''' section of EM.Terrano's Navigation Tree as follows:
* '''Impenetrable Surfaces''': feature reflection and diffraction of impinging rays. Rays hit the facets of this type of blocks and bounce back, but they do not penetrate the object. It is assumed that the interior of such blocks or buildings are highly absorptive.
* '''Penetrable Volumes''': feature reflection, transmission and diffraction of impinging rays and model propagation in a material media.
* '''Penetrable Surfaces''': feature reflection, transmission and diffraction of impinging rays and model . These blocks represent thin surfaces that are used to model the exterior and interior wallsof buildings based on the "Thin Wall Approximation". Rays reflect off the surface of penetrable surfaces and diffract off their edges. They also penetrate the thin surface and continue their path in the free space on the other side of the wall. * '''Terrain Surfaces''': feature reflection and optional diffraction of impinging rays. These blocks are used to provide one or more impenetrable, ground surfaces for the propagation scene. Rays simply bounce off terrain objects. The global ground acts as a flat super-terrain that covers the bottom of the entire computational domain.
* '''Base Points''': are used to define transmitter and receiver locations in the scene.