XtcExplorer (GUI interface to pyana)

Note! This package is a new version of the "XtcEventBrowser" which is the old name of the package.

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The XtcExplorer allows a simple-to-run interface to the xtc files. The package name is XtcExplorer, the executables (xtcexplorer and xtcscanner) are found in the app subdirectory of this package, and all other source code is in the src subdirectory.

How to get started

You should always run this code from your own release working directory. It might work from other directories, but be aware that configuration files will be written to your current directory. Look out for files with names xb_pyana_XXXX.cfg, where XXXX is a random four-digit number. You can use them to run pyana directly from the command line. But they accumulate, so you might want to remove these regularly...

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If you encounter any problems, ask for help! Don't be stuck. This is supposed to be easy. If it's not, I did something wrong, so let me know! Send me an email (ofte at slac.stanford.edu)

Description of the GUIs

LCLS Xtc Explorer

xtcexplorer will launch the main GUI. It currently has two sections:

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Pyana Control Center

After scanning, a new GUI will pop up showing you a list of detectors/devices found in the file. A little more information is written to the terminal window too.

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More information on how to run pyana by itself (see 'pyana -h' for more help, or the pyana section of confluence).

The pyana modules

The GUI as described above prepares a configuration file for you to run pyana. You can either run it from the GUI or you can run it from the command line. The configfile sets input parameters for the pyana modules in this package. Feel free to use one or more of these modules as a starting point for your more elaborate pyana analysis!

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A few things to note about the different detectors / pyana modules:

Common configuration parameters

A few parameters are common to all modules, and their default values are set to be the same, but can also be set individually for each module. They are the following:

# parameter name   default value   comment
  plot_every_n      = 100         # If 0, plot only at the end. Else, display every N events
  fignum            = 1           # matplotlib figure number

pyana_plotter

This module is added to the end of the job, after other modules. It does nothing (yet) than control the display mode. Default is SlideShow mode. There's also a handle to allow you to use ipython at the end of the job (or after each plot) to investigate your plottet arrays further. This is not functional yet.

  display_mode      = 2           #  Interactive (1) or SlideShow (2) or NoDisplay (0)
  ipython           = False       #  Drop into ipython after each plot (to allow further investigation of data)

pyana_bld

This module collects data from the BeamLine Detectors (Bld) and plots them in separate windows. In SlideMode, the plots accumulate from one plot to the next.
To run this module by itself with pyana:

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 do_ebeam           = False       #  Plot data from EBeam object
 do_gasdetector     = False       #  Plot data from GasDetector
 do_phasecavity     = False       #  Plot data from PhaseCavity
 do_ipimb           = False       #  Plot data from SharedIpimb

pyana_waveform

Plots waveform data from Acqiris digitizers. Takes a list of addresses, currently will make one plot for each channel of each device.
To run this module by itself with pyana:

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  sources           =             # string, space-separated list of addresses (Detector-Id|Device-ID)

pyana_cspad

CsPad data is reconstructed in pyana_cspad.py. The image plot value limits are adjusted automatically, but if
you want to change them, click on the color bar (left-click for low limit, right-click for high limit).
The successive events will be plotted with the new limits. Revert to the original by middle-clicking.
To run this module by itself with pyana:

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pyana_image.py

This module processes generic camera frames, e.g from Pulnix TM6740 device. It allows any number of images, given as a space-separated list of addresses in the configuration file.

• You can set ranges to define good images and dark images. If both are set, you have the option to display good images background subtracted, where background subtraction is based on the average of background images so far collected.
• Each image can be separately rotated, shifted and scaled (zoomed in/out).
• Nicknames can be given to the input images. Defaults are Im1, Im2... etc. These names will be used if you plot differences, or other manipulations of the original images.
• The images are subtracted and differences displayed as well as fourier transform of differences. Examples of what may be displayed. To display other things, at this stage you have to edit pyana_image.py to change this behaviour.

  Code Block
  none none
  image_addresses # address string of Detector-Id|Device-ID good_range # threshold values selecting images of interest (Format: low,high) dark_range # threshold values selecting dark images (Format: low,high) image_rotations # rotation angle, in degrees, to be applied to image(s) image_shifts # npixel shifts, format (nx,ny), to be applied to image(s) image_scales # scale factor (float) to be applied to images image_nicknames # nicknames for plot titles image_manipulations # String containing keywords: Diff, FFT output_file # filename. Valid extensions are .hdf5, .txt (ascii) or .npy (numpy binary) n_hdf5 # if output file is hdf5, combine n events in each output file.

  Displays of three different Pulnix TM6740 images of YAG screens, after rotation/translation. Also shown, differences between images and FFT of differences.

pyana_ipimb

ipimb_addresses     # list of IPIMB addresses

pyana_epics

pv                  # Name(s) of the EPICS PV(s) to dump

pyana_scan

This module is different from the others. It does a "motor scan", displays certain values as a function of scan step of a motor scan. The motor name is given in the xtc file as the Control PV. There may be more than one control PV. It currently takes two scalar type inputs to evaluate the scan:

input_epics         # Name(s) of other scalars to correlate in scan
input_scalars       # Name(s) of other scalars to correlate in scan

xtcscanner

This tool also belongs to the XtcExplorer package, and is used by the GUI. But the tool can also be run directly from the command line:

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Scanning....
Start parsing files:
['/reg/d/psdm/AMO/amo01509/xtc/e8-r0094-s00-c00.xtc', '/reg/d/psdm/AMO/amo01509/xtc/e8-r0094-s01-c00.xtc']
  201 datagrams read in 0.070000 s .   .   .   .   .   .   .
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XtcScanner information:
  - 1 calibration cycles.
  - Events per calib cycle:
   [197]

Information from  0  control channels found:
Information from  9  devices found
                      BldInfo:EBeam:             EBeamBld (197)
            BldInfo:FEEGasDetEnergy:             FEEGasDetEnergy (197)
        DetInfo:AmoETof-0|Acqiris-0:  (5 ch)     AcqConfig_V1 (1)   AcqWaveform_V1 (197)
      DetInfo:AmoGasdet-0|Acqiris-0:  (2 ch)     AcqConfig_V1 (1)   AcqWaveform_V1 (197)
        DetInfo:AmoITof-0|Acqiris-0:  (1 ch)     AcqConfig_V1 (1)   AcqWaveform_V1 (197)
        DetInfo:AmoMbes-0|Acqiris-0:  (1 ch)     AcqConfig_V1 (1)   AcqWaveform_V1 (197)
     DetInfo:EpicsArch-0|NoDevice-0:             Epics_V1 (688)
         DetInfo:NoDetector-0|Evr-0:             EvrConfig_V2 (1)
                          ProcInfo::             RunControlConfig_V1 (11)
XtcScanner is done!
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Further analysis with pyana

Any serious data analysis will need more customized tools than we can provide in a GUI interface. This will require the user / analyst to program his/her own tools. Pyana is a complete framework for programming a user analysis in python. The Gui Event Browser can provide simple analysis code that can be expanded by the user. "Blank" analysis code can also be generated with Andy's codegen script (try codegen -h and codegen -p for options).

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