The analog characteristics of the detector have to be initialized in order to define the noise and the dynamic range which need to be used for the measurements. These parameters have a different meaning for analog or digital detectors, but in both cases some predefined voltage levels and current (we call them settings) must be laoded to the detector. Moreover, there are some parameters that are custom to single detectors or modules (e.g. the trimbits). All these settings are stored in some settings file, which are organized in a settingsdir with a definite architecture, where the software will look for the files to load to the detector whaen changing its settings.
In addition to that, in a single photon counting detector the threshold is set as a voltage level for the comparator, but for the user it is useful to have a direct conversion to the energy level. For this, after a proper calibration of the detector (see specific documentation) calibration file are generated in order to convert threshold in volts to keV. Also in this case the directory caldir where the calibration files are stored must be defined ad organized with a proper architecture, suche that the software can find the calibration coefficients for settings the threshold.
Normally settingsdir and caldir can be the same, but have been left separate for flexibility.
The settingsdir and caldir should be properly configured for your detector either in a configuration file (for use with text clients, GUI or API) or dynamically (works only for the text clients).
In the following, the architecture of the settingsdir and caldir is described for the different detectors.
trimdir.
Since these directories are customized by producing trimbit files and calibration for each detector, make sure not to overwrite yours every time you upgrade the software.
settingsdir should contain three subdirectories standard, fast and highgain containing respectively the trimfiles standard.trim, fast.trim and highgain.trim which contain the correct voltage settings for the detector although all the individual channel thresholds set to 0. The original files contained in the package should be used, infact in case of error the detector would not recognize the correct settings.
The default trimbit files for each file will be stored in the directory according to the settings with the name noise.snxxx where xxx is the module serial number.
caldir should contain three subdirectories standard, fast and highgain containing respectively the trimfiles standard.cal, fast.cal and highgain.cal which contain an average calibration of the modules for the diffrent settings. However this can different from the correct one for each individual module even of several kev and therefore it is very important to perform an energy calibration on a module basis.
The default calibration files for each file will be stored in the directory according to the settings with the name calibration.snxxx where xxx is the module serial number.
settings in this software package.
dynamicgain, gain1, gain2, gain3, highgain, lowgain, mediumgain, and veryhighgain in order to properly configure the GOTTHARD detector using the various gain settings.