VISUALIZATION OF TIME-OF-FLIGHT NEUTRON-DIFFRACTION DATA

The glass, liquids and amorphous materials diffractometer (GLAD) is a new instrument at the intense pulsed neutron source (IPNS) at Argonne National Laboratory. The GLAD currently has 218 linear position sensit ive detectors arranged in five banks. Raw data collected from the inst rument are typically split into 1000-1500 angular groups each of which contains approximately 2000 time channels. In order to obtain a meani ngful overview of such a large amount of data, an interactive system t o view the data has been designed. The system was implemented in C usi ng the graphical kernel system (GKS) for portability. The system treat s data from each bank of detectors as a three-dimensional data set wit h detector number, position along detector and time of flight as the t hree coordinate axes. The software then slices the data parallel to an y of the coordinate planes and displays the slices as images. This app roach has helped with the detailed analysis of detector electronics, v erification of instrument calibration and resolution determination. In addition, it has helped to identify low-level background signals and provided insight into the overall operation of the instrument.