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A new visualization tool to operate high energy physics detectors
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A new visualization tool to operate high energy physics detectors
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1. Introduction
0. Abstract
The new high energy physics detectors like Aleph are very complex and run
for years. Their operation requires new tools. In this approach we give to the
operator all the relevant information in graphical form in real time
on the workstation screen in front of him.
The pictorial form is necessary both to ensure an high communication bandwidth
and to allow the immediate understanding of the detector status.
This approach has been applied to two subdetectors of
Aleph, an apparatus taking data in one of the collision points of the LEP
accellerator in the CERN laboratory on the swiss-french border near Geneva.
The two subdetectors are the Hadron
Calorimeter and the Muon Detector. Together they have around
250 000 sensors : electronic channels that must individually be monitored for
malfunction. A program has been developed to monitor them: the Hcal
monitoring display which makes use
of a 2D representation of the detector and displays on it the status
of each channel in pseudocolor.
This is similar to the representation of geographical data in atlases.
The complex 3D structure of the apparatus is flattened in
a 2D picture. Malfunctions appear as empty zones,"strange" colors, odd shapes.
