xdamp Version 6: An IDL®-based Data and Image Manipulation Program

Abstract

The original DAMP (DAta Manipulation Program) was written by Mark Hedemann of Sandia National Laboratories and used the CA-DISSPLA™ (available from Computer Associates International, Inc., Garden City, NY) graphics package as its engine. It was used to plot, modify, and otherwise manipulate the one-dimensional data waveforms (data vs. time) from a wide variety of accelerators. With the waning of CA-DISSPLA and the increasing popularity of Unix®-based workstations, a replacement was needed. This package uses the IDL® software, available from Research Systems Incorporated, a Xerox company, in Boulder, Colorado, as the engine, and creates a set of widgets to manipulate the data in a manner similar to the original DAMP and earlier versions of xdamp. IDL is currently supported on a wide variety of Unix platforms such as IBM® workstations, Hewlett Packard workstations, SUN® workstations, Microsoft® Windows™ computers, Macintosh® computers and Digital Equipment Corporation VMS® and Alpha® systems. Thus, xdamp is portable across many platforms. We have verified operation, albeit with some minor IDL bugs, on personal computers using Windows 7 and Windows Vista; Unix platforms; and Macintosh computers. Version 6 is an update that uses the IDL Virtual Machine to resolve the need for licensing IDL.