flash-center / PRadReader

Reader software for PROBLEM and PraLine

PRadReader code (Proton Radiography Reader)

PRadReader is intended to provide an interface to read in various experimental and simulated proton radiography flux data for analysis with the Python libraries PRaLine and PROBLEM.

The typical workflow for PRadReader and PRaLine/PROBLEM is as follows:

PRadReader takes various experimental and simulated proton radiography data, reads it, prompts the user for additional experimental setup data (including relevant distances from the source to the plasma, across the plasma, etc.) and compiles it into a PRR data file. PRaLine and PROBLEM both include command line tools to read in PRR data files to perform their reconstruction algorithms with the data inside.

The currently supported formats are: FLASH4 output, MIT csv, and regular csv files with the radiography flux data inside.

Setup

Dependencies

This module requires Python 2.7 or 3.5. Installation requires git.

OS X users: Prior to installing dependencies, ensure an adequate Python installation by following this guide. The Python that ships with OS X may not work well with some required dependencies.

The following Python packages are required:

• future (Cross-compatibility between Python2 and Python3)
• numpy (Scientific computing)
• matplotlib (Plotting)
• pandas (Parsing Large files)

On most systems (see above note for OS X), they can be installed using Python's PIP package manager as follows:

pip install future
pip install numpy pandas

Depending on how Python was installed on your system, pip may require Administrative or sudo privileges.

Installation

Once all dependencies are satisfied, install the latest version of PRadReader by:

pip install git+https://github.com/flash-center/PRadReader

The module can also be installed by:

git clone https://github.com/flash-center/PRadReader
cd PRadReader
python setup.py install

Alternatively, if you do not have root permissions, install the package to your user directory:

python setup.py install --user

Usage

PRadReader includes a commmand line tool pradreader to automatically handle reading experimental and simulated proton radiography data for the supported formats listed above. In order to use it, first install PRadReader and then type

pradreader myfile.ext -o prr_file.txt

to read the file myfile.ext. PRadReader will then prompt you for the file type (FLASH4, MIT, csv) and will prompt you for the relevant distances and other information needed for the reconstruction process. It will save a PRR data file to the output prr_file.txt. Then, using PRaLine or PROBLEM, you can use prr_file.txt to complete your analysis of the radiography flux data.