McXtrace - An X-ray ray-trace simulation package

1.4  Overview

The McXtrace system documentation consists of the following major parts:

• A short list of new features introduced in this McXtrace release appears in chapter 2

• Chapter 3 explains how to obtain, compile and install the McXtrace compiler, associated files and supportive software

• Chapter 4 concerns Monte Carlo techniques and simulation strategies in general

• Chapter 5 includes a brief introduction to the McXtrace system (section 5.2) on running the compiler to produce simulations. section 5.3 explains how to run the generated simulations. Running McXtrace on parallel computers requires special attention and is discussed in section 5.6. A number of front-end programs are used to run the simulations and to aid in the data collection and analysis of the results. These user interfaces are described in section 5.4.

• The McXtrace meta-language is described in chapter 6. This chapter also describes a set of library functions and definitions that aid in the writing of simulations. See appendix A.2 for more details.

• The McXtrace component library contains a collection of well-tested, as well as user contributed, beam components that can be used in simulations. The McXtrace component library is documented in a separate manual and on the McXtrace web-page [Mcx], but a short overview of these components is given in chapter 8 of the Manual.

A list of library calls that may be used in component definitions appears in appendix A.2, and an explanation of the McXtrace terminology can be found in appendix B.3 of the Manual. Plans for future extensions are as a rule presented on the McXtrace web-page [Mcx].