The visual creation and display of MCNP geometries and lattices for criticality problems

A visual editor has been created to help generate complex Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) geometries. The visual editor has two primary functions: first, to provide a graphical interface for viewing MCNP geometries. Geometry-viewing features include keeping track of multiple plots, keeping track of previous plots, and having the capability to zoom in or change the origin using the mouse. The editor also allows the user to determine surface and cell definitions directly from the plot window by using the mouse to select the desired surface or cell. The second primary function of the visual editor is to aid in the creation of MCNP geometries. All the MCNP geometry capability is available including lattices, universes, fills, transformations, and not cards. The visual editor currently supports the dynamic creation of importances, materials, and transformations. The visual editor includes powerful tools that can aid in the display and creation of lattices for criticality problems. Aids are provided to help view lattices by limiting the amount of detail displayed in a lattice geometry. Special labels are available to help display the characteristics of the universes filling the lattice, and a lattice generation tool aids in the creation of a lattice and setting of the fill matrix. The source code and executable are currently available at the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center. The program has been successfully compiled under the UNIX operating system on the HP, SG1, SUHN, and IBM and under the LINUX operating system on Pentium platforms. The code package is PSR-358. A Windows version of the visual editor that includes only the viewing capabilities and printing is also available