McStas 2.4 released!
Date: 18/05/2017
Source: mcstas.org
MCS
McStas 2.4 has been released and is ready for download via http://downloads.mcstas.org/mcstas-2.4
Highligts from the release are listed below. The full list of changes is also available at http://mcstas.org/CHANGES_McStas.
Changes in McStas v.2.4, May 17th, 2017
McStas 2.4 is the fifth release in the 2.x series and fixes various issues with McStas 2.3, plus provides important new developments.
Note that we only provide 64 bit packages now, with the exception of Debian and the Windows platform! (32bit packages for a given platform can be made available on request)
- Tools:
- From 2.4 we will default to use our new set of Python tools, developed by Jakob Garde, DTU. See the Wiki doc page for usage
- A mcgui editor with rich syntax highlighting
- A mcrun utility script, with a few new features wrt. the legacy perl solution.
- A newly developed mcplot-pyqtgraph, optically similar to the legacy mcplot solution, but with new features.
- A newly developed mcdisplay-webgl
- Fully 3D and interactive, uses your HTML5-capable browser with javascript controls
- Pause or resume visualisation of the neutron rays in the instrument
- Allows to keep already rendered rays to illustrate the full beam
- Visualises rays with color, scaled with particle velocity (ideal for illustrating e.g. monochromatisation)
- A newly developed mcdisplay-pyqtgraph, modeled after the legacy mcdisplay tool, but with various improvements
- The cif2hkl software from iFit (http://ifit.mccode.org) is provided with McStas for easy generation of reflection lists for the Single_crystal and PowderN components
- Components and instruments:
- A new set of components referred to as “Union“components, contribution by Mads Bertelsen Uni Copenhagen.
- Allows very rich simulation of samples and sample environment
- Several instrument files included to illustrate the capabilities and use
- See his video presentation
- Component and Instrument documentation headers have been uniformised in preparation for a Python mcdoc.
- MCPL library updated to v. 1.1
- ESS_butterfly.comp provides a time-focusing mode ala what was available in ESS_moderator_long.
- ESS_butterfly_MCPL.instr implements the use of MCPL files in the ESS butterfly geometry
- PowderN can “flip” the d_phi focusing to “zoom” on a range of angles.
- New PSD_monitor_TOF that outputs a TOF signal pr. PSD pixel (single files). Used in templateNMX_TOF.instr
- A version of Isotropic_Sqw from the McStas 2.0 release has been imported under the name of Isotropic_Sqw_legacy, since some users reported that release being in better agreement with experiments.
- By the help of a Japanse user, we have identified issues with the performance of the supermirror coating option in FermiChopper.comp. We will investigate further and adress the issue over the course of 2017. Note that the component works as expected when not implementing supermirror slits.
- Various bugfixes and improvements across the example instruments and component library
- A new set of components referred to as “Union“components, contribution by Mads Bertelsen Uni Copenhagen.
- Platforms:
- Our macOS application bundle provides a 'miniconda' Python, including gcc, openmpi etc.
- Our Linux packages for RPM systems provide a 'miniconda' Python for all Python tool dependencies.
- Our Windows installer provides a 'miniconda' Python, including gcc.