Chapter 2. Introduction

Table of Contents

2.1 About Atlantis
2.2 Roadmap of the Atlantis Online Documentation
2.3 Which coordinate systems are used?
2.4 What is necessary to draw a picture?
2.5 Download, install and run information
2.6 Work memory limit

2.1 About Atlantis

Atlantis is an event display program for the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The primary goal of the program is the visual investigation and the understanding of the physics of complete events. Secondary goals are to help develop reconstruction and analysis algorithms, to facilitate debugging during commisioning and to create pictures and animations for publications, presentations and exhibitions.

Specific features of the program are:

  • The use of data oriented projections. See Chapter 5, Projections.

  • The use of subviews within the display area window to be able to view various projections simultaneously. See 3.2 Canvas.

  • 2D animations beyond panning and zooming.

  • 3D synchronous pointers across the various projections, so you may pick an object in one projection and see where it is located in the other projections.

  • A basically mouse driven user interface using generally applied facilities of modern user interfaces (e.g. pop-up, tooltip). See Chapter 3, User Interface.

Atlantis is based on the ALEPH event display DALI and is written entirely in JAVA.

Leading Principles

Three leading principles form the base of Atlantis development:

  • Atlantis is fast.

  • Atlantis is used intuitively.

  • Atlantis is used for complete ATLAS events.

So we try to realize: Everything quickly available for everybody!