Graphical reduction and analysis small-angle neutron scattering program: GRASP

Abstract

GRASP is a scientific software application designed for the graphical inspection, reduction and analysis of multidetector data produced by the small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) instruments at the Institut Laue–Langevin and other neutron sources around the world. The first developments of GRASP began more than 20 years ago and were written in MATLAB, allowing rapid development of scientific code, with much of the data handling, matrix manipulation, mathematical tools, user interface and graphical tools integrated at a high level in the underlying MATLAB platform. By their very nature, multidimensional data are often best appreciated in graphical form. GRASP deals with many of the diverse requirements for data reduction and analysis of SANS data using a general set of tools and reduction algorithms suited to 2D multidetector data. A further fundamental architectural inclusion is a third dimension of data manipulation, thereby easily allowing parametric analysis and cross referencing of series data such as composition, kinetic measurements, temperature, magnetic field, angle or time of flight, often considered as a single `measurement'. This article serves as a reference document for users of the software, and outlines the architecture and strategy of the program. An overview of some of the features, capabilities, peripheral user modules and neutron scattering tools is presented.