Writing Particle Data to a File

IViPP can write data about highlighted particles into tab-separated text files. Such files can be read into a spreadsheet for quantitative analysis beyond what IViPP provides. To write particle data to a file, use the “Selected Particles” item in the “Save” submenu of IViPP’s “File” menu. A dialog such as shown in Figure 7.1 will appear.

Figure 7.1. The “save selected particles” dialog.

The dialog in Figure 7.1 is, for the most part, a standard dialog for saving files. You can specify a name for the saved file, navigate through the file system to find the folder you want to put the file in, and create new folders. The only unique feature is the three radio buttons across the bottom, which allow you to indicate what data you want to save. The options are as follows:

Position

Selecting this option will write the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the particles to the output file. Exactly what “the” coordinates of a particle are depends on the type of the particle: for SRIM “range” data they are the positions at which the particles stop; for SRIM “transmit” data they are the positions at which particles exit the target; for particles with complete histories they are the particles’ starting points. Click here for an example of a file containing saved position data from an SRIM “transmit” source.

Trajectory

Selecting this option will output the X, Y, and Z coordinates of both the particles’ starting points and ending points. Here is an example of trajectory data from the same SRIM source as described under “Position.” Note that for this type of data, starting points are the origin, where SRIM assumes particles hit the target, and ending points are the points at which the particles exit the target.

Energy

Selecting this option will write the starting point, direction cosines, and energy of the particles to the output file. Here is the SRIM example saved as “energy” data. The particles’ positions indicate where they exit the target, direction cosines indicate the direction in which they are moving at that point, and energy is the energy with which they exit.

 

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