Spectra can be created, or deleted at any time. The spectrum command is the main command for manipulating spectra.
SpecTcl has a rich set of spectrum types in addition to the normal 1d and 2d spectrum types. This section will describe only the most commonly used spectrum types. If you don't see the spectrum type you want, have a look at the reference manual for more.
As with the parameter, spectrum
is followed by a switch that describes the operation it is supposed
to do. If no switch is supplied -new is
assumed.
The general form of the spectrum command to create a new spectrum is:
name is the name of the new spectrum.
Spectrum names must be unique. type
is a one or two letter code that indicates the type of the
spectrum that will be created.
parameter-list is the list of parameter
names that are needed to create the spectrum. The number
and organization of this list depends on the spectrum
type. axis-speclist is a list of axis
specifications.
The optional datatype parameter is one of
byte, word or
long which indicate whether channels are
8, 16 or 32 bits wide respectively. The default is
long. These days there's no compelling
reason to use any other data type. This parameter dates from
when systems had much less memory than they do today.
We're going to describes the following spectrum types:
This spectrum requires a single parameter and a single axis specification. The parameter value is scaled as defined by the binning of the single axis the resulting channel is incremented if the gate applied to the spectrum is true.
The form of the axis specification is:
{{low high bins}}. Where
low and high
are the axis limits (the range of parameter values that
lie within the spectrum) and bins
is the number of bins in the axis.
This spectrum requires two parameters that are in order the X and Y parameters. It also requires two axis specifications which specify the x and y axis limits and binning.
For each event, the axis specifications are used to compute an x and y channel which is then incremented if the spectrum's gate is true.
The form of the axis specification is: {{xlow xhigh xbins} {ylow yhigh ybins}}. Where each axis has low and high cutoffs for its parameter and bin counts.
The summary spectrum is a way to monitor several similar channels simultaneously. The summary spectrum takes an arbitrarily long list of parameter names.
While summary spectra are displayed as 2-d spectra, the X axis definition is determined by the number of parameters in the parameter list. The only axis definition, therefore is the Y axis definition.
One useful way to think of the summary spectrum is as 2d display of vertical strips where each vertical strip is a 1-d histogram of the channel in that x position.
Typically summary spectra are used for a set of parameters that have a similar meaning (such as the energy parameters from and array of detectors). By looking at a summary spectrum you can quickly see channels that are not working or not gain matched (if you're attempting to gain match these channels).
The spectrum command can also list all or some
of the spectrum definitions. As with parameter -list,
spectrum -list lists
the spectra in a format that is easy for Tcl scripts to interpret.
As with parameter -list,
spectrum -list can take
an optional pattern parameter that selects only spectra whose name
match the pattern. Once more the pattern works exactly like
a unix filename pattern (glob pattern), and accepts all of
the wild card characters accepted by file name patterns.
spectrum -list can also accept
a -showgate option. This must appear before
any filter pattern. If -showgate is used,
each spectrum definition will also list the gate that's applied
to the spectrum.
spectrum -list returns a
Tcl list. Each Tcl list element describes one spectrum and
that spectrum is described as a Tcl list. A common error in
writing Tcl scripts is to remember that even if you are using
spectru -list to list
the definition of a single spectrum, there is still going to be
an outer list with a single element.
The spectrum description list has the following elements (in order):
This is an integer that uniquely identifies the spectrum. It's a pretty useless bit of information that you can ignroe.
The name of the spectrum. This is what SpecTcl and humans use to identify the spectrum.
This is the spectrum type. See the reference documentation for a full list of the large set of spectrum types SpecTcl supports. Recall that 1 means the spectrum is a simple 1-d spectrum, 2 means the spectrum is a simple 2-d spectrum and s means the spectrum is a summary spectrum.
The list of parameters used to create the spectrum. The actual organization of this list depends on the spectrum type. 1-D spectra will just have a single parameter. 2-D spectra will have 2 and summary spectra will have the list of parameters on the X axis of the spectrum.
This is a list o axis definitions. Each axis definition is a three element list of low limit, high limit and bins for the axis.
1-D spectra will have a single axis definition that describes the limits and binning of the x axis. 2-D spectra will have two axis definitions; the first for the X axis, the second for the Y axis. summary spectra will also have a single axis definition but this will define the binning on the y axis.
See the reference documentation for more about the axis definitions for each spectrum type. Note again this element is a list of axis definitions, even when there's only one definition.
The data type byte, word or long used to store each channel of the spectrum.
If -showgate was used, there will
be an additional list element that is the name of
the gate applied to the spectrum.
Ungated spectra area actually gated on a gate that is always true named -TRUE-. This gate is created by SpecTcl automatically.
The spectrum command can also be used to delete spectra. Spectrum names are unique. In order to redefine a spectrum, you must first delete it. The form of the command to do this is:
Where spectrum-name is the name of the
spectrum you want to delete.
A command closely related to the spectrum command is sbind. Recall that SpecTcl does not have an intrinsic visualizer, but has an external program, Xamine or the Root based Spectra. In order to facilitate high speed transfer of bulk channel data from SpecTcl to these displayers, SpecTcl can place a spectrum's channel data into a shared memory region.
The sbind command can bind a set of specific spectra or all spectra to shared memory. Note that it is harmless to attempt to bind the same spectrum more than once to shared memory. The two forms of the sbind command are:
Where name1 and so on are spectrum
names.