Short explanation on how to quickly run PAOS and have its output stored in a convenient file.
The quickest way to run PAOS is from terminal.
Run it with the help flag to read the available options:
$ paos --helpThe main command line flags are listed in :numref:`Main command line flags`.
Main command line flags| flag | description |
|---|---|
-h, --help |
show this help message and exit |
-c, --configuration |
Input configuration file to pass |
-o, --output |
Output file |
-p, --plot |
Save output plots |
-n, --nThreads |
Number of threads for parallel processing |
-d, --debug |
Debug mode screen |
-l, --logger |
Store the log output on file |
Where the configuration file shall be an .ini file and the output file an .h5 file (see later in :ref:`h5`). -n must be followed by an integer. To activate -p, -d and -l no argument is needed.
Note
PAOS implements the log submodule which makes use of the python standard module logging for output information.
Top-level details of the calculation are output at level logging.INFO, while details of the propagation through
each optical plane and debugging messages are printed at level logging.DEBUG. The latter can be accessed by setting
the flag -d, as explained above. Set the flag -l to redirect the logger output to a .log textfile.
Other option flags may be given to run specific simulations, as detailed in :numref:`Other option flags`.
Other option flags| flag | description |
|---|---|
-wfe, --wfe_simulation |
A list with wfe realization file and column to simulate an aberration |
To have a lighter output please use the option flags listed in :numref:`Lighter output flags`.
Lighter output flags| flag | description |
|---|---|
-keys, --keys_to_keep |
A list with the output dictionary keys to save |
-lo, --light_output |
Save only at last optical surface |
To activate -lo no argument is needed.
PAOS stores its main output product to a HDF5 file (extension is .h5 or .hdf5) such as that shown in :numref:`mainoutput`.
To open it, please choose your favourite viewer (e.g. HDFView, HDFCompass) or API (e.g. Cpp, FORTRAN and Python).
Main PAOS output file
For more information on how to produce a similar output file, see :ref:`Saving results`.
As part of the output, PAOS can plot the squared amplitude of the complex wavefront at a given point along the optical path (the focal plane in the case shown in :numref:`defaultplot`).
Baseline PAOS plot
The title of the plot features the optical surface name, the focal number, the Gaussian beam width, the simulation wavelength and the total optical throughput that reaches the surface.
The color scale can be either linear or logarithmic. The x and y axes are in physical units, e.g. micron. For reference, black rings mark the first five zeros of the circular Airy function.
For more information on how to produce a similar plot, see :ref:`Plotting results`.