Opticks : A GPU Accelerated Optical Photon Simulation using NVIDIA OptiX

For presentations and videos about Opticks:

• http://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io

For instructions on building Opticks and externals:

• http://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io/opticks/docs/opticks.html
• http://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io/opticks/docs/examples.html
• http://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io/opticks/

Related repositories:

• https://bitbucket.org/simoncblyth/env

Bitbucket and Github repositories

• https://bitbucket.org/simoncblyth/opticks
• https://github.com/simoncblyth/opticks

Currently the bitbucket opticks repository is used for day to day pushes with the github repository only being pushed to infrequently when making releases that are provided as github releases. The Github repo is usually several months behind bitbucket so you are advised NOT to use it.

https://bitbucket.org/simoncblyth/opticks	very latest code repository, unstable, breakage common
https://github.com/simoncblyth/opticks	"releases" weeks/months behind, more stable
https://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io	presentations and videos
https://groups.io/g/opticks	forum/mailing list archive
email:[email protected]	subscribe to mailing list

Installation instructions start with a clone:

cd $HOME
git clone http://bitbucket.org/simoncblyth/opticks

If you have commit access to opticks, you need to use SSH:

cd $HOME ;
git clone [email protected]:simoncblyth/opticks.git

To update an existing clone:

cd ~/opticks
git remote -v   # should list bitbucket.org urls
git status
git pull

Setup opticks by copying ~/opticks/example.opticks_config to your HOME directory and customizing it as instructed by the links therein:

cp ~/opticks/example.opticks_config ~/.opticks_config
vi ~/.opticks_config    # adapt PREFIX paths
echo "source ~/.opticks_config" >> .bashrc

Then after starting a new bash session you can proceed with:

opticks-info   # check bash hookup
opticks-full   # download and build externals and opticks

Overview of Opticks installation steps

A high level overview of the sequence of steps to install Opticks are listed below. For details see http://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io/opticks/

0. install "system" externals : NVIDIA GPU Driver, CUDA, OptiX 6.5 following instructions from NVIDIA. Check they are working.
1. use git to clone opticks bitbucket repository to your home directory, creating ~/opticks
2. hookup the opticks bash functions to your bash shell
   • cp ~/opticks/example.opticks_config ~/.opticks_config
   • ensure that your .bash_profile sources .bashrc
   • add line to .bashrc "source ~/.opticks_config"
3. start a new session and check the bash functions are hooked up correctly with:
   • opticks-info
   • bash -lc "opticks-info"
4. install the foreign externals OR use preexisting installs of boost,clhep,xercesc,g4
   • opticks-foreign # lists them
   • opticks-foreign-install # installs them
5. edit ~/.opticks_config setting the paths appropriately for the prefixes of the "system" and "foreign" externals and setting the prefix for the opticks install (eg /usr/local/opticks)
6. install the "automated" externals and opticks itself with opticks-full
7. translate a geometry using for example g4cx/tests/G4CXOpticks_setGeometry_Test.sh, see :doc:`docs/testing`
8. test the opticks build with opticks-t

Orientation documents for developing an Understanding of the Opticks codebase

• https://simoncblyth.bitbucket.io/opticks/docs/orientation.html

The orientation documentation seeks to highlight the Geant4+Opticks classes/functions that you need to be familiar with to understand how Opticks takes a Geant4 geometry and converts that into an NVIDIA OptiX 6 geometry suitable for optical photon simulation.

By design the orientation is a far from complete guide to the codebase, I just focus on classes/functions that you should look at first when building your understanding.

The html is generated by Sphinx from readable .rst sources with includes from comments in the source files themselves. The html orientation docs are best read whilst also looking at the sources, get those with:

git clone https://bitbucket.org/simoncblyth/opticks

Feel free to ask for further things for me to add to these docs.