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A CAD/Geant4 Front-end Interface. Fan Lei Space Department, Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, Farnborough, UK Rodolfo Gurriaran Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Southampton Southampton, UK (Some images and data in this presentation courtesy of PDES Inc.). Introduction.
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A CAD/Geant4 Front-end Interface Fan Lei Space Department, Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, Farnborough, UK Rodolfo Gurriaran Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Southampton Southampton, UK (Some images and data in this presentation courtesy of PDES Inc.)
Introduction • A front-end user interface to allow space engineers to import CAD model into the Geant4 based space radiation shielding calculation tools. • The development process has been divided into two phases • Phase I: Investigate compliance of major CAD tools with STEP protocol or future trends in this direction. Define a set of user requirements for a CAD front-end interface for the space radiation effects community. Assess their possible application as a front-end for geometry/material definition for G4 based tools. • Phase II: The design and development of the front-end interface. The final esign is a combination of a CAD system and a Material Generation & Association tool. The later is adapted from GGE. • The work has been carried out by University of Southampton
Some Comments • AP203 ISO standard since 1994 • The compliance of CAD systems is evolving fast • Many CAD system claim to be compliant, but in reality only partial • some “old” STEP files forget the “management” information (class1) • AutoCAD R15 partially implement class1, not class 3 nor 5. • CATIA the first to be certified conformant with the STEP international standard (AP203) • PDES generated a “Recommended Practices for AP203” in 1998: • class 1 is required. • For this work, class 1 “management information” must be present (“PRODUCT” field)
Evaluation of CAD status CAD Product: Suitability for G4 based application: • ProEngineer (Parametric) yes • Euclid (Matra Datavision) yes (with translator) • Catia (IBM Dassault) yes • MicroStation (Bentley) translator released ? • AutoCAD (AutoDesk) yes (R14.01 +) • I-deas (SDRC) yes It is not possible to use a CAD system to define and manage the material information as required in Geant4
G4 STEP reader • Based on a free tool from NIST • Instantiate geometry in STEP file as G4LogicalVolumes • limitations : • accesses only geometry information, does not access the “management” information, i.e. the class 1 data. • How to associate material to each volume ? • To enhance the reader to read the class 1 information • temporary solution: use the sequential coincidence between volumes in step file and mga file.
Front-end User Interface The Interface consists of • An off-the-shelf CAD system: for geometry modeling. The design is outputted in a STEP file. • The Material Generation & Association (MGA) tool: allow user to define the materials and associate them with volumes in the STEP file. The results are outputted in a MGA file. The STEP and MGA files will be used to define the geometry in a G4 application automatically.
G4 Application Using STEP & MGA Files • Requirement on STEP file format: • AP 203 • Volumes are named • A description of material is • desired. • MGA file format: • See the document: UoS-rep-05
MGA Design of the MGA tool is based largely on GGE: the G4 geometry editor.
Future Work • Enhance the G4 STEP reader: compliance to AP203 class 1. • More tests with variuous types of STEP files from ESA, created by different CAD tools. • Integration of MGA/GGE? • Commit the proper G4mgareader to the G4 repository. • Documentation.
Relevant Documents • G3 and CAD systems (UoS-rep-01) • GEANT4 and CAD systems (UoS-rep-02) Following documents can be found in DERA web pages: http://www.space.dera.gov.uk/space_env/geant_docs/geant_docs.html • URD CAD-Tool Front-End to GEANT4/SPARSET (UoS-rep-03) • Discussion Document on the General Design of the CAD Front End Tool (UoS-rep-04) • Development of GGE to perform materials and visualisation attribute definition in the CAD tool front end (UoS-rep-05) • SSD CAD Front End Tool for GEANT4/SPARSET (UoS-rep-06)