Proton Radiography Format

This site includes descriptions, readers, and writers for a collection of file formats (collectively known as pradformat) which are tailor-designed for use in the proton radiography workflow.

The target audience for these formats is anyone working on synthetic proton radiography, experimental proton radiography, or inversion algorithms.

These file formats provide a means to 'checkpoint' your work at various stages of the proton radiography data pipeline.

Why Use these Formats?

Primarily, to facilitate sharing code and data among researchers in proton radiography (for High Energy Density Physics).

Sharing and re-using codes and data in proton radiography could greatly increase our community consistency and individual productivity. Surprisingly, sharing and re-use is difficult today because (1) many codes attempt to re-implement all steps of the proton radiography pipeline and (2) processed data is shared in one-off ways (like as exported .mat MATLAB workspaces).

I propose that a solution would be to standardize file formats for processed data and to modularize our codes into discrete stages that input/output these formats. With common file formats that allow us to share our data at various stages in the proton radiography data pipeline, individuals will no longer need to re-invent the entire pipeline. Instead, each of us can focus our energy into improving the specific stages of the data pipeline matching our expertise and interest.

Specific use cases of these file formats may include:

• benchmarking and comparing various inversion algorithms

• comparing synthetic radiographs to experimental radiographs

• archiving processed radiographs for future re-analysis

• modular hot-swapping of particle sources, particle tracers, and inversion algorithms along the synthetic radiography pipeline

• exploring new inversion algorithms without writing your own particle tracer

Interested in learning more? Proceed to the Overview, or jump right in with Getting Started.