Table of Contents
The Atlantis user interface is basically mouse driven and using generally applied facilities of modern user interfaces (e.g. pop-up, tooltip). It consists of a permanent Control Window "Atlantis GUI" (see 3.1 Control Window), a permanent display area window "Atlantis Canvas" or Canvas (see 3.2 Canvas) and various pop-up windows (see 3.3 Pop-up Windows).
Besides, modifier keys (see 3.4 Modifier Keys) are available for quick view and control of parameters and selections.
The Control Window is used to view and modify parameters and selections that control the pictures on the Canvas. The pop-up windows are available for quick viewing and modification of relevant parameters and selections.
The Control Window, "Atlantis GUI", is opened when Atlantis is started. It is used to view and modify parameters and selections that control the pictures on the Canvas, the display area of Atlantis. Functionality is grouped into components, namely (listed from top to bottom of the Control Window):
Menu
Provides functionality for I/O, program customisation and the help system. See 3.1.1 Menu.
Canvas Control
Provides functionality to select a canvas pad and to copy pictures between canvas pads. See 3.1.2 Canvas Control.
Interaction Control
Provides functionality for user interaction with the program (pick, zoom, transformations, projections). See 3.1.3 Interaction Control.
Parameter Control
Provides functionality for viewing and changing various parameters (data selection, cuts, detector, subdetector systems, projections). See 3.1.4 Parameter Control.
Output Display
Displays specific output of the program (picking output, cuts summary, etc.). See 3.1.5 Output Display.
The Menu is positioned at the very top of the Atlantis Control Window. It contains the items File, Preferences, Lists, Demo, Reset, Previous (previous event), Next (next event), Help. The options of the menu items are briefly described below.
File
The File menu item is used to perform operations on event files and to exit Atlantis. Note that event files are expected to be in XML format (which may also be zipped). The item contains the following options:
Read Event
Displays a dialog window where you can choose which event file to read from your local computer.
Read Event From URL
Displays a dialog window where you can specify a URL to read events from.
Read Event From Server
Displays a dialog window where you can specify a server name or IP-address to read events from. This option can be used to start e.g. online event monitoring with Atlantis. See 3.1.1.1 Access to Events for details.
Interactive Athena
Displays a dialog window to select and fetch events interactively from Athena. See Chapter 8, Interactive Athena for further details.
Save Canvas
Displays the graphics output format options from which you may select the one you want to use to save pictures shown on the Canvas.
EPS
Encapsulated PostScript. Vector graphics format for posters, publications, etc.
PNG
Portable Network Graphics. A compressed bitmap format to be used in Powerpoint presentations, etc.
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format. Another compressed bitmap format.
Animated event
Event Properties
Displays a pop-up window with a summary of various properties of the selected event.
Overlay Events
Pile up events (as they are read from whichever source) and display them superimposed. This option is turned off by default, tick the box to enable. This feature was implemented for comparing simple low-size events (e.g. cosmics single track events).
N.B.: Atlantis gets very slow and exhausts available memory quickly if this option is enabled when reading in complex, several magabytes large event files.
N.B.: See 2.6 Work memory limit to increase the value of the internal work memory.
Clear Event Container
Clicking this item empties all the events read into Atlantis after Overlay Events was enabled, the last event remains.
Read Geometry...
Displays a dialog window to select and apply a new geometry file in XML format.
Exit
Exit Atlantis.
Preferences
The Preferences menu item is responsible for customizing the application. It contains the following options:
Change Canvas Layout - Displays a dialog window that allows the user to select a shape and layout set that is applied to the Canvas. See 3.2 Canvas.
Select Color Map - Displays a dialog window which allows the user to choose the color set used to draw the pictures. There are four color sets:
Display - Default color set used for display.
Printer - The set of colors used when printing.
Gray - The grayscale set of colors.
B/W - The black-and-white set of colors.
Color Map Editor - Displays a dialog window that allows the user to edit any of the color sets described above.
Read Color Map - Displays a dialog window that allows the user to replace the current colormap with one previously stored on an XML file.
Save Current Color Map - Displays a dialog window that allows the user to store the current colormap to an XML file for later use.
Save Current Configuration - Displays a dialog window that allows the user to store the current status (configuration) of the program to an XML file for later use.
Show Pointer Position Window - Displays a dialog window which will show the user the position of the pointer when the user right clicks while keeping the O key pressed.
Show Legend Window - Displays a dialog window that shows the color thresholds for the cells of the summed LAr/HEC endcaps when using Calo->LAr/HEC->Color Function->Energy
Show Canvas Title - Adds or removes the title bar from the top of the Canvas. See 3.2 Canvas.
Lists
Creates a Lists pop-up window for the interactive definition and manipulation of subsets of data. See 3.3.4 Lists Window.
Reset
Resets Atlantis to the default initial settings.
Prev
Loads and displays the previous event if available.
Next
Loads and displays the next event if available.
Help
The Help menu item provides a way to get access to help information. It has four options:
Online Help System
Starts the help pop-up window with the table of contents. See 3.3.6 Help Window.
Modifier Keys
Starts the modifier keys pop-up window with information about active modifier keys. See 3.3.5 Modifier Keys Window.
Current Colors of objects
Starts a pop-up window to display the current color of some selected objects (eg AOD/track/detector).
About
Starts the about pop-up window with Atlantis version, website address and hypernews email address.
Events to display in Atlantis can be fetched in many ways:
File → Read Event - an XML event file or a ZIP archive of XML event files from a local source (i.e. file on the local disk).
File → Read Event From URL - from a web server over HTTP protocol.
File → Read Event From Server - from a server started within the JiveXML algtool (Athena - Atlantis event data converter) running in the Athena framework. The name or the IP address of the remote server where Athena runs must be entered into the dialog. The event data is delivered to Atlantis either after the user clicks the Get Event button or automatically (with a specified delay) if the timer is enabled.
In order to use this feature, the JiveXML server must be started in Athena/JiveXML which is done by ToolSvc.EventData2XML.OnlineMode = True (JiveXML job option). Every time Athena reconstructs an event, JiveXML will produce the XML event data for Atlantis. This mechanism can be used for online monitoring and gets rid of the intermediate step of writing the event data into the event files. Nonetheless, if the user spots an interesting event, the data read into Atlantis in this online mode can be stored on the local disk after clicking the Save Event button. If not stored, the event data will be lost with reading in the next event.
The JiveXML server listens on the high number non-privileged port on the remote server. Should there be any firewall network security restrictions imposed, it might be necessary to communicate via an SSH tunnel between the local computer running Atlantis and the remote machine running Athena/JiveXML.
File → Interactive Athena - getting the event on demand (Get Event button) while steering the Athena framework from Atlantis through the Athena interactive prompt. Further details in Chapter 8, Interactive Athena.
When starting Atlantis, it tries by default to look for a file test_events.zip in the events directory. If not found, Atlantis starts without any event read in.
N.B.: When starting Atlantis in the Fast or the TB mode, the event archives test_eventsFast.zip, resp. test_eventsTB.zip are looked for.
Pictures are shown in the display area window or Canvas (see 3.2 Canvas), which may have one or more subwindows, the canvas pads. So in the case of multiple canvas pads, one may e.g. view event data in different projections on the Canvas. The possible canvas pad configurations are specified in layout sets.
A layout set is selected via the Preferences→Change Canvas Layout menu option of the Menu (see 3.1.1 Menu) of the Control Window.
The layouts of the current layout set are displayed in the Control Window as a row of rectangles directly under the menu. A rectangle is divided into one or more boxes, representing the canvas pads. A letter or number in a box represents the canvas pad name.
For example, in Landscape Layout the canvas pads are UDR, 123456, SR, W, LMR and in Square Layout they are W, SRB, 123456789, LMRB, UCD369.
Canvas Control provides functionality for different kinds of operations on the boxes:
Making a canvas pad current
The current canvas pad corresponds to the box with the white background. Clicking with the left mouse button into another named box will select another canvas pad to become current. If this is not visible on the Canvas it will be made visible.
N.B.:
You can also make a canvas pad current by clicking on it in the Canvas (at least, if you can see part of the desired canvas pad).
Copying the content of one canvas pad into another
You can copy the content (picture) of one canvas pad into another by dragging and dropping it into another one. While you are dragging, the cursor will change to let you know that you are dragging. You can copy canvas windows even if they are not current. After the copy finishes the target canvas pad will become current.
N.B.:
Another possibility to copy is to drag from the Canvas Control into the Canvas (if you can see in the Canvas at least a part of the target canvas pad).
Zooming a region of one canvas pad into another
Canvas Control contributes to the process of zooming with a rubber band, however you cannot perform a zoom by using Canvas Control only. Further information about using Canvas Control for zooming is available on the Rubberband page (see 4.2 Rubberband).
Accessing the pop-up Canvas Pad Menu
The pop-up Canvas Pad Menu (see 3.3.1 Canvas Pad Menu) can be accessed by right-clicking with the mouse in the corresponding box. The corresponding canvas pad will become selected.
The interaction control part of the Control Window (see 3.1 Control Window) is used to activate an interaction in a canvas pad and to modify interaction specific control options of the activated interaction. Control options are described under the specific interactions (see Chapter 4, Interactions.
Interactions can be invoked in different ways:
Via the interaction control of the Control Window:
In the Control Window they are represented as a set of tabs, each representing a specific interaction. Clicking on a tab makes the corresponding interaction available in the current canvas pad and displays control options (if available for the selected interaction) on the panel just below the set of tabs in the Control Window.
Via a modifier key in a canvas pad:
An alternative representation is obtained by holding the I key down and right-clicking inside the canvas pad for which you want to change an interaction. As result you will get a pop-up menu (see 3.3.3 Interaction Menus) with the same set of tabs as in the Control Window. You can select the interaction you want.
Since not all interactions are available for all projections, only the available interactions are shown for a specific projection.
Atlantis has many parameters. For convenience these parameters are combined into a number of groups that are accessed via the following tabs:
Proj
To select a projection and to modify specific parameters of the selected projection. See Chapter 5, Projections.
Data
To select the 6.1 Data Types of which the data will be used and to select the order of display (e.g. when using different track reconstructions). See 6.3 Data Selection.
See the InDet, Calo and MuonDet tabs below for the appearance of the data in the various subdetector systems.
Cuts
To apply cuts to the physical values of the selected data. See 6.4 Cuts.
InDet
To control the display and appearance of data in the inner detector. See 7.1 Inner Detector (InDet).
Calo
To control the display and appearance of data in the calorimeters. See 7.2 Calorimeters (Calo).
MuonDet
To control the display and appearance of data in the muon system. See 7.3 Muon Detector (MuonDet).
AOD
ATLAS
The output display is located at the very bottom of the Control Window (see 3.1 Control Window) and is used as a replacement for standard terminal output. It provides information in a more readable format by using multiple fonts and colors.
Information is shown e.g. from:
Rubberband interaction (see 4.2 Rubberband)
Pick interaction (see 4.3 Pick)