These help pages were designed at the

Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, Oxford University, U.K.

by A. Tennant and D. McMorrow.

RESCAL for MATLAB makes use of MATLAB's powerful graphics and windowing systems. The spectrometer parameters can be entered either from a file or interactively in the control windows. This makes learning how to use RESCAL for MATLAB fairly easy. This web page gives a run down on the parameter windows that appear on startup, and what each parameter corresponds to. 

On starting up RESCAL for MATLAB two windows appear, one entitled "Rescal: Parameters", and the other "Rescal: Instrument". The window "Rescal: Parameters" contains spectrometer parameters such as collimators and d-spacings that are common to both the Cooper-Nathans and Popovici resolution methods. The other window that appears "Rescal:Instrument" contains parameters such as monochromator dimensions and curvatures which are specific to the Popovici method. The reason that both windows appear on startup is that the Popovici method is the default setting. If the Cooper-Nathans method is selected from the pull-down menu entitled method on the menu bar on "Rescal: Parameters" then the "Rescal: Instrument" disappears as it is not needed. To aid in explaining what each part of the two parameter windows do, screen shots of both windows are given below. 

The "Rescal: Parameters" Window

The "Rescal: Parameters" window is shown below. It consists of a title bar in blue, then underneath that a menu bar in grey followed by three sets of parameter boxes "Spectrometer", "Lattice", and "Scan". Each individual parameter box has a label such as DM (for monochromator d-spacing) and an explanation of the labels and units used are provided in the figure below. A parameter is entered or changed simply by clicking on the parameter box with the left mouse button and entering the new value from the keyboard. 

The menu bar consists of five choices: Exit: to exit the RESCAL for MATLAB program Parameters: a pull down menu which gives the choice of opening a parameter file or saving existing parameters in a new file. Method: a pull down menu giving choice of resolution methods, Cooper-Nathans or Popovici. Rescal: executes the calculation and plot of resolution widths and various projections of the resolution ellipsoid. Simulation: executes the simulation which generates new parameter windows for the simulation parametrs, dispersion &c. 

The "Rescal: Instrument" Window

The "Rescal: Instrument" window is shown below. It consists of a title bar in blue, then underneath that a menu bar in grey followed by the parameter box. The menu bar has a single option "parameters" for opening and saving parameter files.