Along with other software for LCD research, a common distribution of the SLIC simulator package is available for SLAC Unix users.
Access to NFS
Access to SLAC NFS can be requested from the Unix Administration List. (Of course, you must already
have a SLAC Unix account to get NFS access.)
From a Unix terminal, open a connection to noric-new and login.
ssh noric-new
Now, switch to the bash shell.
bash
You need to setup the project environment to access the common software
distribution.
source /nfs/slac/g/lcd/mc/prj/bin/prj.sh
Now, you should be able to run slic from $PRJ_BIN.
slic [arguments]
SLIC Command Line Interface
Unlike most other packages, the command line interface to
SLIC simply maps to Geant4 commands. This keeps the interface
consistent. This also means that the order of the switches matters,
because it can affect Geant4's current state.
To see available command line options, invoke the help command.
slic --help
There are a number of different ways to run SLIC, including purely
macro or command-line driven.
For instance, here is a command to load the SDJan03 test geometry
and start an interactive terminal.
slic -g $PRJ_DIST/slic/current/examples/sdjan03/SDJan03.lcdd -n
LCDD files for Common Detectors
The LCDD files for common detectors such as SiD are kept at /nfs/slac/g/lcd/mc/prj/data/detectors,
which should be accessible from the SLAC Linux machines.
Now, in order to have a work area for your SLIC usage, checkout the
package from CVS.
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.freehep.org:/cvs/lcd cvs co slic cd slic
Within this directory, you will be able to write LCIO files.
This is an example of visualizing a single muon event in the SDJan03 test
detector using GPS. From your slic directory, execute the following
commands.
slic -g examples/sdjan03/SDJan03.lcdd -n Idle>/control/execute macros/vis_gl.mac Idle>/control/execute macros/gps.mac Idle>/run/beamOn
You could also dump a heprep.
Idle>/control/execute macros/heprep2.mac
Or you may want to check for overlaps in the detector.
Idle>/geometry/test/recursive_test
A purely macro-driven job can be executed from the slic directory like so.
slic macros/sdjan03_dbg.mac
You can dump this event using an LCIO utility.
lcio-dumpevent outfile.slcio 0 0
In general, a minimalist SLIC session will be started as follows.
slic -g /path/to/geometry/file -n
The -z option tells SLIC to initialize the simulator at that
point and -n will start an interactive session.
SLIC Initialization
SLIC must be initialized directly by the user, either by executing
the /run/initialize command from a macro or using the -z
option in the command line options. In the latter case, the
command option initializes the simulator in the order that the
switch was invoked at the command line.
Alternately, you may start in interactive mode and manually input
all required commands.
slic -n Idle>/lcdd/setURI examples/sdjan03/SDJan03.lcdd Idle>/run/initialize
An input file in StdHep or LCIO format can be specified with the -i
option or using the /generator/filename command from the PreInit> prompt.
When you call /run/beamOn, the events from this file will
be used as input to the simulator.
Batch job submission
Here is a set of commands that may be useful for batch submission.
slic -g geom_file -i input_file -p path_for_output_file -o output_file -s #_events_to_skip -r #_events
Skip before Run Events
The -s argument needs to come before -r or it will be ignored!