Allen J. Hall

Materials Science & Engineering, Productivity, and Life

OsX

Finally- Qspace mapping success!

I have no idea why this took so long, but I finally have the code to import and output various graphs of the reciprocal space maps (RLM or Q-space) taken using the Xpert Xray diffraction system. One of the difficulties in outputting the older data has been solved by our new line-scan detector system. The data is now taken in the more simple Omega-2Theta space instead of Omega-Omega2Theta space. With the help of Mauro Sardela, the fantastic research scientist who runs the XRD lab at the Materials Research Laboratory (FS-MRL), I’ve properly translated the data into Q-space using the same equations the Xpert Epitaxy software uses.
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Software For Scientists: Awk (& OsX)

For years while Apple had proprietary system software, I was itching to get a Unix system underneath and have the ease of the windowing system. Well, after OsX was released, I was ecstatic. Why? Because of the ease of some tasks in Unix in comparison to other OS’s. This post is only one example of what you can do if you do a bit of research into how to use your Mac. For those who have un*x boxes, this will merely be a place-holder for a few AWK scripts for you.
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Matlab doesn’t open two windows? – Here’s a fix.

After finally installing Leopard (10.5) osX on my Powerbook G4 (Thesis writing computer), I noticed a strange behavior with MATLAB. MATLAB could no longer open more than one instance of itself. As well, it could no longer open a window once it had opened once in any login session. Strange behavior indeed.

Well, here’s the fix… it turns out that Leopard uses launchd to set the display. So, the old method of launching MATLAB was to set the display to 0.0, but this will fail after the first instance, hence the bug. What you can do is simply remove this line from the startup script in matlab (located within the startup application contents).

The line that was:

$SHELL -c 'bin/'$ARCH'/setsid bin/matlab -desktop -display :0.0 &'

should now be:
$SHELL -c 'bin/'$ARCH'/setsid bin/matlab -desktop &'

Once I changed that, everything started up fine! :)

ps- you will know you have this problem if you look at your console log immediately after launching MATLAB and it says something like:
6/29/10 9:03:34 AM [0x0-0x78078].StartMATLAB[23469] Warning: Unable to open display :0.0, MATLAB is starting without a display.

QCad- Build failed, OsX 10.4.7, Fink, QT3Mac and patched

A very quick one for today. I’ve recently attempted a compile of the open-source program QCad (Community Edition). Unfortunately, even with QT3Mac installed (via Fink) and a patch applied, QCAD is still not compiling under 10.4.7.

I was hoping to use it to edit and draw CAD files for the machine-shop. I may have to use the 10minute demos of the professional version to get the job done quickly. Sad, as I was really looking forward to a good open-sourced CAD software package. I use it infrequently, and definitely don’t need AutoCad.

Here’s the error I recently received. [Will edit this post with more info as I get it...]
main.cpp: In function `int main(int, char**)':
main.cpp:233: error: parse error before `(' token
make[1]: *** [obj/main.o] Error 1
make: *** [qcad] Error 2
Building qcad binary failed

A Quick Introduction...

I'm a graduate student (PhD Candidate) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I've studied and researched in two fields of Materials Science and Engineering (Polymers and Semiconductors). My interests are as diverse as my musical tastes and I usually have my hand in some crazy project during my free time.

I'm available for consulting and have access to a world-renown materials research user-facility supported by the D.O.E. If you would like to know more, please contact me.

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