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F1} Prologue
ABOUT
~~~~~
flair is an advanced user friendly interface for several Monte Carlo
codes. Originally it was developed for FLUKA, where its unique
features strongly contributed to the success of both codes FLUKA and
flair. From version 3 the interface was separated from the
functionality permitting an easy integration of other simulation
packages.
The current line of development is to make flair a unique
tool for performing calculations with the same input using FLUKA,
Geant4, PENELOPE, and other simulations engines.
Presently is fully supporting the CERN FLUKA http://fluka.cern version
and there is ongoing work to support:
- PENELOPE https://www.oecd-nea.org/tools/abstract/detail/nea-1525
- Moira http://cern.ch/moira a Geant4 http://cern.ch/geant4
based application, permitting the user to run with Geant4 FLUKA
equivalent inputs with the same geometry, materials, scoring,...
Other codes like MCNP, PHITS could be added in the future.
Flair is based entirely on python3 and tkinter with a C++ extension
used for the fast geometry visualization. Flair provides the
following functionality:
1. front-end interface for an easy and almost error free
editing as well as validation of the input file during
editing;
2. interactive geometry editor, allowing to edit bodies and
regions in a visual/graphical way with immediate debugging
information
3. compiling, running and monitoring of the status during a run;
4. back-end interface for post-processing of the output
files and plot generation through an interface with gnuplot
or 3D photo-realistic;
5. library of materials and geometrical objects, for easier
editing, storing and sharing among other users and projects;
6. python API for manipulating the input files, post
processing of the results and interfacing to gnuplot;
7. import/export to various formats (gdml, mcnp, povray, dxf,
bitmap-images)
Version 3 *most* important changes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. WEBSITE Change, From December 1st 2019 the official web site of
flair is
http://flair.cern
with an alias the
http://cern.ch/flair
Support to the www.fluka.org is discontinued.
2. Flair v3 is being completly restructured and based on python v3.
Previous versions of flair (until v2.5) were based on Python v2.
On January 1 2020, python v2 will no longer be supported by its creators
https://www.python.org/doc/sunset-python-2
and all major Linux distributions are already moving away from it.
3. Flair v3 supports ONLY the CERN FLUKA version.
4. The flair front-end interface is separated from the FLUKA
functionality, which permits the developers the easy
integration of other simulation codes which are input based
(and not only).
5. The long term plan will be to fully support from the same
interface CERN FLUKA, PENELOPE, Geant4, MCNP, PHITS, permitting
the user to test/benchmark various simulations codes using the
same input.
6. From v3 the master input file for flair is the ".flair" project
file (no longer the ".inp").
i.e. the whole FLUKA input file is stored in the ".flair" file in
an text human readable way.
7. Input Editor is now based on a Text widget and no longer on the
Canvas. This gives more flexibility to operate as a text-editor,
with considerable improvement in performance.
(i.e. a huge input file of 25000+ cards was taking almost 20s in
the past to be displayed in the input editor, now on the same
computer it takes less than 3s.)
8. The geometry engine is restructured to allow its use as a
geometry navigator for simulation programs, allowing the easy
integration of the present FLUKA input geometries in Geant4.
9. There are numerous improvements in the geometry engine for a
better user experience, i.e. more logical error checks,
3D plots are enhanced with ambient occlusion for photorealistic
shadows, and faster adaptive antialiasing and edge detection.
For a complete log of the new flair v3 features please look at the
associated release notes.
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