Python and ROOT scripts for the process of digital waveforms taken with CAEN digitizers and readout programs. A similar project, ROSA is created for Struck ADCs.

Features

• Works with WaveDump and CoMPASS without any modification of code on both sides
• All scripts can be run directly in Linux, Mac and Windows without compilation and installation
• GUI across three major platforms
• Data are saved as basic types in ROOT TTree ntuples, which can be easily open without loading extra libraries defining complicated data structure. Uproot can be used to load the data for analysis in Python
• Super short variable names for quick analysis using ROOT TTree::Draw function in a ROOT interactive session. For example,

root[1] t->Draw("s:Iteration$","is==0","l",5,2)

shows 5 non-saturated (is==0) waveforms (s: individual waveform samples, Iterations$: sample index) starting from event 2:

Prerequisites

A CAEN readout program (WaveDump or CoMPASS) is not needed to run the scripts here, but its output is the input for these scripts. A few example WaveDump output files named as wave0.dat are included in the run data folder 2020 so that the processing scripts can be tested without hardware.

CERN ROOT is needed to run scripts ended with .C. Any version can be used for MacOS or Linux. The binary distribution of ROOT 5.34/38 for Windows is good enough for this project and should be used before version 6 for Windows becomes stable.

Python is available for Linux, Mac and Windows. Python packages uproot and matplotlib are needed. They can be installed as a normal user using the pip command:

python3 -m pip install uproot matplotlib

Getting started

Exploring example data

A few example WaveDump output files named as wave0.dat, etc., are included in the folder 2020 to demonstrate the usage of the processing scripts:

• 2020/02140956 contains coincidently triggered waveforms from two SiPMs sandwiching a BGO crystal taken with a DT5751 digitizer
• 2020/06272158 contains waveforms from a Hamamatsu SiPM module taken with a DT5751 digitizer
• 2020/12021523 contains waveforms from a HPGe detector taken with a DT5720 digitizer

To explore them, please

1. download the package from https://github.com/jintonic/toward.git
2. get to the toward directory, double click b2r.py to convert wave?.dat to wave?.root. The script can also be run in a terminal as python3 b2r.py or simply ./b2r.py. Note that in Git Bash or MobaXterm, the command has to be changed to winpty python b2r.py to enable running Python installed in Windows in a Linux-like terminal
3. click Show button on the window created by running b2r.py to show waveforms in newly created wave?.root using script show.py
4. use other scripts to process the generated root file

Analyzing new data

In case of CoMPASS, simply run its GUI, enable saving binary wave data from different channels to different files. Save the project to a subdirectory in toward. The project folder will be automatically recognized by toward as a run data folder as it contains the CoMPASS configuration file: settings.xml. After data taking, follow step 2 in the previous section.

In case of WaveDump:

1. create a new run data folder named, for example, yyyy/mmddHHMM/ in your local copy of toward. Note that there is no specific requirement on the naming scheme of your data folders. It will be recognized as a run data folder if it contains a WaveDump configuration file WaveDumpConfig.txt
2. get into the just created folder and create a WaveDump configuration file there named WaveDumpConfig.txt
3. run wavedump WaveDumpConfig.txt there to create binary output file wave?.dat, where ? is the channel number. Note that in Window, you may have to run WaveDump from its installation folder, its configuration file and output files need to be copied or moved from there to the newly created folder. In order for b2r.py to process the configuration file properly, please don't name it other than WaveDumpConfig.txt. Settings that can be tuned in the configuration file can be found in the WaveDump manual.
4. follow the previous section starting from step 2.

Scripts

• w2r.C: a ROOT script to convert a CAEN WaveDump binary output to ROOT format, align baselines of waveforms to zero, and save basic parameters of waveforms
• c2r.C: a ROOT script to convert a CAEN CoMPASS binary output to ROOT format, align baselines of waveforms to zero, and save basic parameters of waveforms
• b2r.py: a Python script to fetch information from a CAEN DAQ configuration file and pass it to w2r.C or c2r.C based on the configuration file found in the run data folder
• q2i.C: a ROOT script to get heights of charge pulses using trapezoidal filter and convert charge pulses to current ones using numerical differentiation
• i2q.C: a ROOT script to convert current pulses to charge ones
• integrate.C: a ROOT script to integrate waveforms in a certain range and save the result to the original data tree
• show.py: a Python script to show waveforms in a ROOT file.

Data structure

The way to organize digital waveform data depends on analysis tools and ecosystem to be used. A class named Waveform or Waveforms may not be the best choice. Generally speaking, data structures are the way we organize information on our computer; it should involve things more than just data members of a class. For example, a well designed directory structure and output file naming scheme may simplify the coding significantly. They should be considered as a part of data structure. WaveDump saves waveforms from each channel separately, for example, wave0.dat is from channel 0. In TOWARD, they are organized in folders named as yyyy/mmddHHMM/. You can increase the level of subfolders, for example, yyyy/mm/dd/HHMM/. As long as there is a WaveDump configuration file WaveDumpConfig.txt (or a CoMPASS one: settings.xml) saved in it, it will be recognized as a data directory.

WaveDump configurations

• 2020/02140956/WaveDumpConfig.txt can be used as an example WaveDump configuration file that can be copied to other folders as a starting point for customization. It also demonstrates how to set up coincident trigger among channels

Output file settings

Make sure that the following two options are set as follows in your WaveDump configuration file:

# By default the WaveDump output file format is ASCII,
# we need to change it to BINARY to save disk space.
OUTPUT_FILE_FORMAT BINARY

# By default WaveDump does not attach a header to each waveform,
# we need to enable it to know the size of a waveform data block.
OUTPUT_FILE_HEADER YES

According to the WaveDump manual, the header is simply six 32-bit integers:

1. event size in byte (HEADER size + sample size)
2. board Id
3. pattern a VME specific parameter
4. channel Id
5. event Id
6. trigger time tag

It is followed by waveform samples as 16 or 8-bit integers.

Syntax highlighting

share/vim/syntax/WDcfg.vim enables syntax highlighting of a WaveDump configuration file in vim. It can be installed the following way in Linux or Mac:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/after/syntax
cp share/vim/syntax/WDcfg.vim ~/.vim/after/syntax

If you don't have file ~/.vim/after/filetype.vim, create one and put the following content in it to let vim recognize the filetype of WaveDumpConfig.txt as WDcfg instead of text:

if exists("did_load_filetypes_userafter")
  finish
endif
let did_load_filetypes_userafter = 1
augroup filetypedetect
  au! BufNewFile,BufRead WaveDumpConfig*.txt if &ft == 'text' | set ft=WDcfg | endif
augroup END

A WaveDump configuration file may look like the following in vim with syntax highlighting enabled: