1. MICE Collaboration Meeting Saturday 22nd October 2005 Malcolm Ellis
Software Status
MICE Collaboration Meeting
Saturday 22nd October 2005
Malcolm Ellis

2. Software “Czar”
I have replaced Yagmur as the Software “Czar” as he moves to head the Analysis forum.
I would like to thank Yagmur for all the work he has done both in leading the project and in developing a very large fraction of the code.

3. What is in G4MICE? Remember – NOT just simulation!
Simulation of the downstream portion of the beamline, cooling channel and instrumentation.
Digitisation and Reconstruction of detectors (in various levels of maturity).
Support packages for Detector and Engineering modelling, Configuration and Calibration control, etc..
Beam/Optics and Analysis tools (emittance calculation, etc...)
Early versions of:
Converters to read in Real Data (two KEK test beams and cosmic ray test at Fermilab)
Persistency
Visualisation
Applications – allows user to build special purpose executables using any combination of the above.

4. Current Activities and Focus
Simulation of the beamline and tracker has been in a good state since the collaboration meeting at LBNL.
New package and detector managers have been agreed.
Ongoing studies:
Beam/Optics utilities and design/optimisation work (Rogers)
EmCal simulation and PID studies (Sandstrom)
TOF reconstruction code for KEK data (Fish)
Working towards implementation and use of a number of new features:
Persistency (to replace current *.out format)
Testing (as part of a more rigorous release structure)
GRID (work with portal development at Imperial and use resources now available at Sheffield)
Event/Spill/Run model (with input from DAQ group)
Applications (allowing users to build their own executables using anything from G4MICE that is needed)
Ability to handle real data (test beams initially)
Online and Offline analysis code for the KEK test beam.
Visualisation (Event Display)

5. Activity – Bugs/Testing
Track G4MICE development work through the reporting and fixing of bugs.
94 bugs have been tracked in the “bugzilla” system since it was introduced.
10 (of various severity) are currently assigned to 5 developers.
Currently in the process of developing basic Unit Tests for all areas of G4MICE.
Aim to finish first version during the workshop.

6. G4MICE Developers
Over the past few years have held 6 software workshops. Seventh will be next week at RAL.
Attendance has fluctuated over time, but the number that stick around and contribute has slowly increased to a stable number of about 10 (although much less FTE!)
Development and exploitation of the software is still limited by the amount of effort available. Total FTE has remained flat at about 2 ~3 over the past year. This is quite a small fraction of 140.
Extremely pleased to welcome several new potential developers to the workshop!

7. Software Workshop To be held in CR8 at RAL from Wednesday – Friday.
Carry on the tradition of being a working session, rather than a meeting.
Long list of tasks scheduled for work:
New packages/applications
MICEEvent/Spill/Run
Persistency
Release procedure
Multiple Scattering test using MuScat data
GRID
PID detector simulation
BeamTools/Optics
Cooling channel simulation
Tracker simulation/reconstruction
TOF reconstruction
Datafiles (calibration, geometry, cabling, etc...)

8. Software Tutorial To be held in CR4 on Tuesday morning.
Introduce new users to the process of installing, compiling and using G4MICE.
Aim to demonstrate the use of G4MICE through a simulation example (prepared at LBNL) and a simple “analysis” of data recently taken in KEK.
5 new mice (i.e. not regular attendees at software meetings) have registered. Its not too late to join them!

9. Future Training
G4MICE is evolving from a tool that is used by experts to one that we hope will be used by all members of the collaboration.
The tutorial and workshop structure continues the tradition of offering training in parallel with work on the code.
Have also held a software engineering workshop at Imperial last year with an expert lecturer from CERN.
I would like to push this further in the coming year, so please let me know if you are a potential user/developer for G4MICE but are put off by a perceived lack of skills (e.g. C++ vs Fortran) so we can attempt to remedy this!

10. Conclusions
I have not delved into the technical details of the large amount of work that has been done in the past months. I assume that if you are interested, you will come to the software workshop.
G4MICE continues to be extended at the rate allowed by available mouse-power.
As always, we will always welcome new developers even if you can only contribute 10% or so of your time!