McXtrace - Monte Carlo Xray Tracing, is a joint venture by

This site is undergoing reorganization. Inconsistencies and broken links may occur. Please do report any findings to erkn_AT_fysik.dtu.dk if you have the time. Thanks in advance.

Funding from NABIIT, DSF and the above parties.

Our code is based on technology from .

Code repository (shared with 'McStas') is located at trac.mccode.org

For information on our progress, please subscribe to our user mailinglist..

To download the latest release: download area
For installation instructions : installation
For a quick list of the available commands: commands

McXtrace News

The latest McXtrace news.

McXtrace 1.1 Released

We are extremely happy to announce the release of McXtrace 1.1 Just in time for the 3-Codes workshop. This release is based on the well known perl tools while we are testing new solutions for python based plotting tools. Please head over to the download area to get your copy. Happy simulating!

Journal Article Published

A journal article on McXtrace has been published in the June issue of Journal of Applied Crystallography. Please follow this link: Journal of Applied Crystallography, 2013, Volume 46, pages 679-696, to get your copy.

Joint Tutorial Workshop

The McXtrace team are very happy to be a part of the Three-code joint tutorial workshop to be help at the ESRF in the beginning of June 2013. Jointly organized by the maintainers (Manuel Sanchez del Rio, Oleg Chubar and Erik Bergbäck Knudsen) of the simulation software packages SHADOW, SRW and McXtrace, it will give participants hand-on experience with simulation of X-ray instrumentation and experiments. Please see here for more details.

McXtrace 1.1 release candidate 1b

At long last the McXtrace team is proud to present the first public release candidate of McXtrace 1.1. Binary installation packages are available for debian and prm based Linux/Unix distributions, recent Windows (including 8, 7 and XP), and MacOSX (10.8, 10.7, and 10.6). Please download the appropriate version from download area. If you prefer, a source distribution is also available. Among the most major changes are

Separated packages for kernel, component libary and tools. This will allow the McXtrace team to repsond quicker to bugs as it allows us to make update release to the component library without packaging a new kernel.
A completely revamped build system: We have moved from autotools to CMake - so from source users will have to install CMake (>2.8) on their system. See installation for more details.
Several significant changes to the component library:
1. Updated Source_lab
2. Chopper_simple
3. Lens_kinoform
4. Mirror_parabolic
5. Twin_KB_ML
6. EPSD_monitor
7. Monitor_nD
8. PreMonitor_nD
9. W_psd_monitor
10. Molecule_2state
11. Shadow_input
12. Shadow_output

Head to the installation page for details on the various platforms.

As always: If you experience any problems (none are to small) please take a moment and report the problem to the development team either by:

reporting your issue in the bug-tracking system @ trac.mccode.org on the McXtrace/McStas code development site.
sending an email to the user mailing list mcxtrace-users@mcxtrace.org.
Leaving a note on the McXtrace facebook page McXtrace-facebook
By sending an email to erkn_AT_fysik.dtu.dk

...or alternatively contact the development team People by any other means available to you. We don't mind reports about no problems as well.

Recent publications

At the recent SPIE conference SPIE Optics + Photonics 2011 in San Diego, CA, the following McXtrace related papers were presented and are now available in the coneference proceedings:

Advanced simulations of x-ray beam propagation through CRL transfocators using ray-tracing and wavefront propagation methods, Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering 2011, Volume 8141, Issue 1, 2011
A Monte Carlo approach for simulating the propagation of partially coherent x-ray beams, Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering 2011, Volume 8141, Issue 1, 2011
McXtrace: A modern ray-tracing package for X-ray instrumentation, Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering — 2011, Volume 8141, Issue 1, 2011

McXtrace 1.0

The McXtrace team is very happy to annouce the release of McXtrace version 1.0! It is currently available from the download area for unix-class systems and for Windows. More platforms will come up as soon as the testing team can process them.

Head to the installation page for details on the various platforms.

As always: If you experience any problems (none are to small) please take a moment and report the problem to the development team either:

By reporting your issue in the bug-tracking system @ trac.mccode.org on the McXtrace/McStas code development site.
By sending an email to erkn_AT_fysik.dtu.dk

...or alternatively contact the development team People by any other means available to you. We don't mind reports about no problems as well.

Older releases

The McXtrace team are pleased to announce the availability of installation packages for Linux, MacOSX, and Windows (XP, Vista and 7). Please download the version which suits your needs from: download.mcxtrace.org/older_releases.html. Installation instructions are available on the installation page. If your setup is terminal driven, once installation is completed, you might want to take a look at the man pages for the command line tools available.

McXtrace Manual

A manual is "under construction". A rough draft version is available here. From now on, we will upload nightly builds of the manuals here: nightlies.

A printed, bound version is planned using a Print-On-Demand scheme.

This is work in progress and may contain significant omissions and inaccuracies but for the interested it may be downloaded here:

The User manual documents the use of the McXtrace system whereas the Component manual details the inner workings of the models employed in the components, in other words the interaction physics between devices and beam.