mxDISPLAY-MATLAB(1)

💅 mxdisplay-matlab — the Matlab/Octave glow-up for your simulations

okay bestie, so this is mxDISPLAY-MATLAB(1) — the manual page, but make it make sense. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, we're doing graphics.

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✨ NAME ✨

mxdisplay-matlab — mcxtrace Graphical display of simulations using Matlab/Octave. yes she's a whole front-end, no she's not doing too much 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

mxdisplay-matlab [-hom] [-png|-jpg|-fig|-eps|-pdf|-tif] [–inspect=COMP]
INSTR name=value...

look at her. iconic. she takes flags, she takes a format, she takes a component filter, and then she takes your instrument plus whatever name=value you wanna throw at her. periodt.

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the mxdisplay-matlab front-end is a graphical debugging tool, fr fr. she draws you a whole schematic of your instrument definition — like, where every component is sitting and where all your simulated xrays are actually travelling through the thing. the vibes are immaculate and also extremely useful, because debugging a simulation blind is giving struggle era. 🦋

you use her when:

• a component is in the wrong position (not me putting a sample inside a wall 💀)
• you need to figure out where xrays are getting lost
• you just want to see it, yk? iykyk

to use the mxdisplay-matlab front-end with a simulation, run it like this:

mxdisplay INSTR args...

where INSTR is the name of either the instrument source INSTR.instr or the simulation program INSTR.out that you generated with mcxtrace, and args are the normal command line arguments for the simulation, exactly like you'd pass to mxrun. and the -h option will list valid options for you — she's helpful like that, always. 🫶

now, the tea on plotting backends: the default plotting backend is mxdisplay-pyqtgraph, but there's a whole friend group of additional plotters you can hang with — mxdisplay-matplotlib, mxdisplay-webgl-classic (using WebGL), mxdisplay-webgl (using WebGL and NodeJS), and mxdisplay-matlab (using Matlab or Octave). 🌈

and this one right here? this is the Matlab/Octave plotting tool. main character energy, honestly. 👑

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• INSTR — displays the given mcxtrace 3D model with its defaults / current parameters. just hand her the instrument and she goes. ✨
• name1=value1 ... — displays the given mcxtrace model with given parameters. override whatever you want, she's flexible. 💖
• -n N, –ncount N — Number of particles to simulate. yeah that's it, that's the whole thing.
• [-png|-jpg|-fig|-eps|-pdf|-tif] — Same as above, and specifies an output file format to generate. Possible save_as are -png -pdf -fig -tif -jpg -eps. pick your format bestie, she'll save it out for you. 🎀
• –inspect=COMP — Same as above, and only plot component names that match COMP, given as a single component word for partial match, such as Monitor — or a component interval such as Monok:Sample or 2:10 or 2:end. so you can zoom your attention in on exactly the components you care about. lowkey the best feature. 🔥
• -m — Explicitely request to use Matlab. (yes, that spelling is hers, we don't touch it. 💅)
• -o — Explicitely request to use Octave. free and open source bestie behavior, we love to see it. 🧚

ngl, if you don't pass -m or -o she'll just do her thing with the backend situation — but if you know which one you want, say it out loud. 😌

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✨ FILES ✨

the sacred texts, the lore, the paths she reads:

• /usr/share/mcxtrace/tools/matlab
• /usr/share/mcxtrace/tools/Python/mccodelib/mccode_config.json
• ~/.mcxtrace/mccode_config.json
• http://www.mcxtrace.org

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

Display the Test_SX example (Single crystal diffraction) — she ate this one, no crumbs:

• mxdisplay-matlab Test_SX.instr -n 1e2 TTH=13.4

like?? one line and you're looking at a single crystal diffraction simulation. slay. 💜

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✨ AUTHORS ✨

mcxtrace Team (mxstas.org). give them their flowers. 🌸

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

mxstas(1), mxdoc(1), mx(1), mxrun(1), mxgui(1), mxdisplay(1) — go read those too, they're all in the group chat. 🫶

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✨ AUTHORS (again, bc she said it twice) ✨

MCXTRACE xray Ray Tracing Team. double credit because they earned it, periodt.

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⚠️ heads up bestie: mxdisplay in the description is the command you literally run, and INSTR can be either INSTR.instr or INSTR.out — don't come for me, that's what the page says. 😭

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and that's the whole page!! the footer down there is stamped git on the left with mxDISPLAY-MATLAB(1) on the right, and honestly the date is just vibes from whenever git last touched it. 💀 go run a simulation, watch your xrays travel, find that lost beam. love u, bye!! 💖✨🎀