[Ifeffit] Graphics Problems in ATHENA

[Ravel, Bruce]

Hi Sola,

This is the sort of question that should go to the Ifeffit mailing
list, so I am taking the liberty of CCing my answer there.
 

> I recently encountered a problem with a .prj file in ATHENA. The first
> issue was the notification that ATHENA may be out of memory and when I
> checked the memory usage under the help menu, I found out that I was not
> even using up to 1% of the memory. So, after closing the saved .prj
> files, one with some groups removed and another one without removing
> some groups, I tried to reopen the .prj but the graphics refused to
> display. I have since rebooted the system and updated IFEFFIT, but still
> no luck!


This is not really enough information for me to figure out the nature
of the problem you are seeing and I have never seen the behavior you
describe, but I can give you a few hints.

1. Athena's way of guessing memory usage is extremely unreliable.
   In general it is a poor idea to import more than about 60 scans
   into Athena (that is, 60 scans of the typical step-scan variety
   with 10 volts steps in pre-edge, 1/2 volt steps through the edge,
   and 0.05 A^-1 steps in the EXAFS) or fewer if you are importing MED
   files with lots of columns or quick scans with lots of data
   points.  This is not a shortcoming of Athena, rather it is a result
   of Ifeffit being written in Fortran.  If you are running into
   memory issues, you should group your data in smaller chunks for
   import into Athena.

2. Perhaps there is something abnormal about the prj file, but I
   cannot know unless you attach an example that produces the poblem
   reliably.

3. Are there any messages in the console window that starts when you
   start Athena?  That's the window that stays on the task bar after
   Athena starts.  The messages i that window may be gobbledigoop to
   you, but they may provide me with information about the nature o
   fthe problem.  If Athena is exiting before you can look at the
   console, try opening up a command window, changing directory to 
   C:\Program Files\Ifeffit\bin (or wherever Ifeffit is installed) and
   running athena from the command line.  That way, any error messages
   will be preserved.

 
B


--
 Bruce Ravel  ----------------------------------- bravel at bnl.gov

 National Institute of Standards and Technology
 Synchrotron Methods Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory
 Building 535A
 Upton NY, 11973

 My homepage:    http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel
 EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/