Multifit / Polydefix - Polycrystal Deformation using X-rays

About

Multifit/Polydefix is an open-source IDL software package for an efficient processing of diffraction data obtained in deformation apparatuses at synchrotron beamlines. It is a compound of three different packages that can be run independently

• Multifit is dedicated to the fitting of two-dimensional (2-D) diffraction data. It will extract d-spacings, intensities, and half-widths for peaks of a given material, for multiple azimuthal slices and over multiple diffraction images.
• Polydefix is for lattice strains, pressure, stress, and texture analysis. It will start from the output files created in Multifit and extract the information required for establishing the rheological behavior of the sample.
• PolydefixED is an adaptation of Polydefix for the specific needs of data collected using the array of energy dispersive detectors that was installed on the the X17B2 beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source, USA.

Since June 2011, it is open source software, licensed under the GPL Version 2.

If you use Multifit/Polydefix in any scientific publication, please refer to the following paper:

S. Merkel and N. Hilairet, Multifit/Polydefix: a Framework for the Analysis of Polycrystal Deformation using X-Rays, Journal of Applied Crystallography, 48 (2015) [doi: 10.1107/S1600576715010390].

Installation

Multifit, Polydefix, and PolydefixED are distributed as packages for the IDL virtual machine, which can be downloaded for free. There was a change of policy recently and the virtual machine is not so easy to find. Basically, try to create an account and download a trial version of IDL. The trial version of IDL does include the virtual machine. Here is a link with instructions for starting a virtual machine application.

The lastest version of compiled binary packages can be found here

• for Multifit: multifit.sav
• for Polydefix: polydefix.sav
• for PolydefixED: polydefixED.sav

Manuals for installing and running multifit/Polydefix can be found on those tutorials.

Development, source code

All Multifit, Polydefix, and PolydefixED source codes are publicly available on github. If you want to improve the code, you will have to purchase an IDL licence, download the latest version of the code, and implement your changes. Here are the links to the three projects on github

• Multifit: Multifit source code on github
• Polydefix: Polydefix source code on github
• PolydefixED: PolydefixED source code on github

There is a quick developer manual for those interested in helping out.

Please, share the results of your work by uploading your changes and improvements in the main software tree so the rest of the community can benefit from your work. Contact us to learn how to do so.