Speaker
M. Case
(UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS)
Description
The CMS Detector Description Database (DDD) consists of a C++ API and an XML based
detector description language. DDD is used by the CMS simulation (OSCAR),
reconstruction (ORCA), and visualization (IGUANA) as well by test beam software that
relies on those systems. The DDD is a sub-system within the COBRA framework of the
CMS Core Software. Management of the XML is currently done using a separate Geometry
project in CVS.
We give an overview of the DDD integration and report on recent developments
concerning detector description in CMS software:
* The ability of client software to describe sub-detectors by providing an algorithm
plug-in in C++ based on SEAL plug-in facilities. A typical algorithm plug-in makes
use of the DDD API to describe detector properties. Through the API seamless access
to data defined via the XML description language is ensured.
* An Oracle schema was recently developed and the database populated by a DDD
application. The geometrical structure of the detector is seen as a skeleton to which
conditions or configuration data can be attached.
* A C++ streaming mechanism to output the geometry as binary files was developed.
This representation can be read into memory much more rapidly than the XML files can
be parsed.
The DDD API shields clients from each of the possible input sources. Even the
simultaneous use of several different input sources is possible through various
configuration options in the framework COBRA.
Primary author
M. Case
(UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS)
Co-authors
A J. Muhammad
(University of the West of England)
A.T.M. Aerts
(Eindhoven University of Technology)
M. Liendl
(CERN)
