Navigation through the geometry at tracking time is implemented by the class G4Navigator. The navigator is used to locate points in the geometry and compute distances to geometry boundaries. At tracking time, the navigator is intended to be the only point of interaction with tracking. Internally, the G4Navigator has several private helper/utility classes: G4NavigationHistory - stores the compounded transformations, replication/parameterisation information, and volume pointers at each level of the hierarchy to the current location. The volume types at each level are also stored - whether normal (placement), replicated or parameterised. G4NormalNavigation - provides location & distance computation functions for geometries containing 'placement' volumes, with no voxels. G4VoxelNavigation - provides location and distance computation functions for geometries containing 'placement' physical volumes with voxels. Internally a stack of voxel information is maintained. Private functions allow for isotropic distance computation to voxel boundaries and for computation of the 'next voxel' in a specified direction. G4ParameterisedNavigation - provides location and distance computation functions for geometries containing parameterised volumes with voxels. Voxel information is maintained similarly to G4VoxelNavigation, but computation can also be simpler by adopting voxels to be one level deep only (unrefined, or 1D optimisation) G4ReplicaNavigation - provides location and distance computation functions for replicated volumes. In addition, the navigator maintains a set of flags for exiting/entry optimisation. A navigator is not a singleton class; this is mainly to allow a design extension in future (e.g geometrical event biasing). The main functions required for tracking in the geometry are described below. Additional functions are provided to return the net transformation of volumes and for the creation of touchables. None of the functions implicitly requires that the geometry be described hierarchically. SetWorldVolume() Sets the first volume in the hierarchy. It must be unrotated and untranslated from the origin. LocateGlobalPointAndSetup() Locates the volume containing the specified global point. This involves a traverse of the hierarchy, requiring the computation of compound transformations, testing replicated and parameterised volumes (etc). To improve efficiency this search may be performed relative to the last, and this is the recommended way of calling the function. A 'relative' search may be used for the first call of the function which will result in the search defaulting to a search from the root node of the hierarchy. Searches may also be performed using a G4TouchableHistory. LocateGlobalPointAndUpdateTouchableHandle() First, search the geometrical hierarchy like the above method LocateGlobalPointAndSetup(). Then use the volume found and its navigation history to update the touchable. ComputeStep() Computes the distance to the next boundary intersected along the specified unit direction from a specified point. The point must be have been located prior to calling ComputeStep(). When calling ComputeStep(), a proposed physics step is passed. If it can be determined that the first intersection lies at or beyond that distance then kInfinity is returned. In any case, if the returned step is greater than the physics step, the physics step must be taken. SetGeometricallyLimitedStep() Informs the navigator that the last computed step was taken in its entirety. This enables entering/exiting optimisation, and should be called prior to calling LocateGlobalPointAndSetup(). CreateTouchableHistory() Creates a G4TouchableHistory object, for which the caller has deletion responsibility. The 'touchable' volume is the volume returned by the last Locate operation. The object includes a copy of the current NavigationHistory, enabling the efficient relocation of points in/close to the current volume in the hierarchy. As stated previously, the navigator makes use of utility classes to perform location and step computation functions. The different navigation utilities manipulate the G4NavigationHistory object. In LocateGlobalPointAndSetup() the process of locating a point breaks down into three main stages - optimisation, determination that the point is contained with a subtree (mother and daughters), and determination of the actual containing daughter. The latter two can be thought of as scanning first 'up' the hierarchy until a volume that is guaranteed to contain the point is found, and then scanning 'down' until the actual volume that contains the point is found. In ComputeStep() three types of computation are treated depending on the current containing volume: The volume contains normal (placement) daughters (or none) The volume contains a single parameterised volume object, representing many volumes The volume is a replica and contains normal (placement) daughters More than one navigator objects can be created inside an application; these navigators can act independently for different purposes. The main navigator which is "activated automatically at the startup of a simulation program is the navigator used for the tracking and attached the world volume of the main tracking (or mass) geometry. The navigator for tracking can be retrieved at any state of the application by messagging the G4TransportationManager: G4Navigator* tracking_navigator = G4TransportationManager::GetInstance()->GetNavigatorForTracking(); The navigator for tracking also retains all the information of the current history of volumes transversed at a precise moment of the tracking during a run. Therefore, if the navigator for tracking is used during tracking for locating a generic point in the tree of volumes, the actual particle gets also -relocated- in the specified position and tracking will be of course affected ! In order to avoid the problem above and provide information about location of a point without affecting the tracking, it is suggested to either use an alternative G4Navigator object (which can then be assigned to the world-volume), or access the information through the step. Using the 'step' to retrieve geometrical information During the tracking run, geometrical information can be retrieved through the touchable handle associated to the current step. For example, to identify the exact copy-number of a specific physical volume in the mass geometry, one should do the following: // Given the pointer to the step object ... // G4Step* aStep = ..; // ... retrieve the 'pre-step' point // G4StepPoint* preStepPoint = aStep->GetPreStepPoint(); // ... retrieve a touchable handle and access to the information // G4TouchableHandle theTouchable = preStepPoint->GetTouchableHandle(); G4int copyNo = theTouchable->GetCopyNumber(); G4int motherCopyNo = theTouchable->GetCopyNumber(1); To determine the exact position in global coordinates in the mass geometry and convert to local coordinates (local to the current volume): G4ThreeVector worldPosition = preStepPoint->GetPosition(); G4ThreeVector localPosition = theTouchable->GetHistory()-> GetTopTransform().TransformPoint(worldPosition); Using an alternative navigator to locate points In order to know (when in the idle state of the application) in which physical volume a given point is located in the detector geometry, it is necessary to create an alternative navigator object first and assign it to the world volume: G4Navigator* aNavigator = new G4Navigator(); aNavigator->SetWorldVolume(worldVolumePointer); Then, locate the point myPoint (defined in global coordinates), retrieve a touchable handle and do whatever you need with it: aNavigator->LocateGlobalPointAndSetup(myPoint); G4TouchableHistoryHandle aTouchable = aNavigator->CreateTouchableHistoryHandle(); // Do whatever you need with it ... // ... convert point in local coordinates (local to the current volume) // G4ThreeVector localPosition = aTouchable->GetHistory()-> GetTopTransform().TransformPoint(myPoint); // ... convert back to global coordinates system G4ThreeVector globalPosition = aTouchable->GetHistory()-> GetTopTransform().Inverse().TransformPoint(localPosition); If outside of the tracking run and given a generic local position (local to a given volume in the geometry tree), it is -not- possible to determine a priori its global position and convert it to the global coordinates system. The reason for this is rather simple, nobody can guarantee that the given (local) point is located in the right -copy- of the physical volume ! In order to retrieve this information, some extra knowledge related to the absolute position of the physical volume is required first, i.e. one should first determine a global point belonging to that volume, eventually making a dedicated scan of the geometry tree through a dedicated G4Navigator object and then apply the method above after having created the touchable for it. Since release 8.2 of Geant4, it is possible to define geometry trees which are parallel to the tracking geometry and having them assigned to navigator objects that transparently communicate in sync with the normal tracking geometry. Parallel geometries can be defined for several uses (fast shower parameterisation, geometrical biasing, particle scoring, readout geometries, etc ...) and can overlap with the mass geometry defined for the tracking. The parallel transportation will be activated only after the registration of the parallel geometry in the detector description setup; see Section for how to define a parallel geometry and register it to the run-manager. The G4TransportationManager provides all the utilities to verify, retrieve and activate the navigators associated to the various parallel geometries defined. Since release 9.1 of Geant4, a specialised navigation algorithm has been introduced to allow for optimal memory use and extremely efficient navigation in geometries represented by a regular pattern of volumes and particularly three-dimensional grids of boxes. A typical application of this kind is the case of DICOM phantoms for medical physics studies. The class G4RegularNavigation is used and automatically activated when such geometries are defined. It is required to the user to implement a parameterisation of the kind G4PhantomParameterisation and place the parameterised volume containing it in a container volume, so that all cells in the three-dimensional grid (voxels) completely fill the container volume. This way the location of a point inside a voxel can be done in a fast way, transforming the position to the coordinate system of the container volume and doing a simple calculation of the kind: copyNo_x = (localPoint.x()+fVoxelHalfX*fNoVoxelX)/(fVoxelHalfX*2.) where fVoxelHalfX is the half dimension of the voxel along X and fNoVoxelX is the number of voxels in the X dimension. Voxel 0 will be the one closest to the corner (fVoxelHalfX*fNoVoxelX, fVoxelHalfY*fNoVoxelY, fVoxelHalfZ*fNoVoxelZ). Having the voxels filling completely the container volume allows to avoid the lengthy computation of ComputeStep() and ComputeSafety methods required in the traditional navigation algorithm. In this case, when a track is inside the parent volume, it has always to be inside one of the voxels and it will be only necessary to calculate the distance to the walls of the current voxel. Skipping borders of voxels with same material Another speed optimisation can be provided by skipping the frontiers of two voxels which the same material assigned, so that bigger steps can be done. This optimisation may be not very useful when the number of materials is very big (in which case the probability of having contiguous voxels with same material is reduced), or when the physical step is small compared to the voxel dimensions (very often the case of electrons). The optimisation can be switched off in such cases, by invoking the following method with argument skip = 0: G4RegularParameterisation::SetSkipEqualMaterials( G4bool skip ); Example To use the specialised navigation, it is required to first create an object of type G4PhantomParameterisation: G4PhantomParameterisation* param = new G4PhantomParameterisation(); Then, fill it with the all the necessary data: // Voxel dimensions in the three dimensions // G4double halfX = ...; G4double halfY = ...; G4double halfZ = ...; param->SetVoxelDimensions( halfX, halfY, halfZ ); // Number of voxels in the three dimensions // G4int nVoxelX = ...; G4int nVoxelY = ...; G4int nVoxelZ = ...; param->SetNoVoxel( nVoxelX, nVoxelY, nVoxelZ ); // Vector of materials of the voxels // std::vector < G4Material* > theMaterials; theMaterials.push_back( new G4Material( ... theMaterials.push_back( new G4Material( ... param->SetMaterials( theMaterials ); // List of material indices // For each voxel it is a number that correspond to the index of its // material in the vector of materials defined above; // size_t* mateIDs = new size_t[nVoxelX*nVoxelY*nVoxelZ]; mateIDs[0] = n0; mateIDs[1] = n1; ... param->SetMaterialIndices( mateIDs ); Then, define the volume that contains all the voxels: G4Box* cont_solid = new G4Box("PhantomContainer",nVoxelX*halfX.,nVoxelY*halfY.,nVoxelZ*halfZ); G4LogicalVolume* cont_logic = new G4LogicalVolume( cont_solid, matePatient, // material is not relevant here... "PhantomContainer", 0, 0, 0 ); G4VPhysicalVolume * cont_phys = new G4PVPlacement(rotm, // rotation pos, // translation cont_logic, // logical volume "PhantomContainer", // name world_logic, // mother volume false, // No op. bool. 1); // Copy number The physical volume should be assigned as the container volume of the parameterisation: param->BuildContainerSolid(cont_phys); // Assure that the voxels are completely filling the container volume // param->CheckVoxelsFillContainer( cont_solid->GetXHalfLength(), cont_solid->GetyHalfLength(), cont_solid->GetzHalfLength() ); // The parameterised volume which uses this parameterisation is placed // in the container logical volume // G4PVParameterised * patient_phys = new G4PVParameterised("Patient", // name patient_logic, // logical volume cont_logic, // mother volume kXAxis, // optimisation hint nVoxelX*nVoxelY*nVoxelZ, // number of voxels param); // parameterisation // Indicate that this physical volume is having a regular structure // patient_phys->SetRegularStructureId(1); An example showing the application of the optimised navigation algorithm for phantoms geometries is available in examples/extended/medical/DICOM. It implements a real application for reading DICOM images and convert them to Geant4 geometries with defined materials and densities, allowing for different implementation solutions to be chosen (non optimised, classical 3D optimisation, nested parameterisations and use of G4PhantomParameterisation). When running in verbose mode (i.e. the default, G4VERBOSE set while installing the Geant4 kernel libraries), the navigator provides a few commands to control its behavior. It is possible to select different verbosity levels (up to 5), with the command: geometry/navigator/verbose [verbose_level] or to force the navigator to run in check mode: geometry/navigator/check_mode [true/false] The latter will force more strict and less tolerant checks in step/safety computation to verify the correctness of the solids' response in the geometry. By combining check_mode with verbosity level-1, additional verbosity checks on the response from the solids can be activated. The tolerance value defining the accuracy of tracking on the surfaces is by default set to a reasonably small value of 10E-9 mm. Such accuracy may be however redundant for use on simulation of detectors of big size or macroscopic dimensions. Since release 9.0, it is possible to specify the surface tolerance to be relative to the extent of the world volume defined for containing the geometry setup. The class G4GeometryManager can be used to activate the computation of the surface tolerance to be relative to the geometry setup which has been defined. It can be done this way: G4GeometryManager::GetInstance()->SetWorldMaximumExtent(WorldExtent); where, WorldExtent is the actual maximum extent of the world volume used for placing the whole geometry setup. Such call to G4GeometryManager must be done before defining any geometrical component of the setup (solid shape or volume), and can be done only once ! The class G4GeometryTolerance is to be used for retrieving the actual values defined for tolerances, surface (Cartesian), angular or radial respectively: G4GeometryTolerance::GetInstance()->GetSurfaceTolerance(); G4GeometryTolerance::GetInstance()->GetAngularTolerance(); G4GeometryTolerance::GetInstance()->GetRadialTolerance();