The first such routine is run by the CA command (autoCAlibrate), or Autocalibrate Spectrum (1) option in the info menu of xmgf3 or gf3x.

This routine uses a source data (.sou) file to define what peaks are expected to be present in the spectrum. It then automatically finds the peaks, defines backgrounds and integrates to get centroids and areas. The results are stored in a Source INput (.sin) file, and energy calibration fits may be optionally saved in an energy calibration (.cal) file. The command is intended to ease the extraction of energy and efficiency calibrations, and to assist in gain-matching detectors. It operates on a single spectrum; energy calibrations for many spectra in multi-spectrum files can be automatically generated using CA3, see (3) below.

To use the command, read in the spectrum you want to analyze and type CA. You will be prompted for the name of a .sou source data file; you can use the standard .sou files that come with radware, although it is usually necessary to edit those for more complex sources (e.g. 152Eu, 133Ba) to remove some doublets etc. An example of such an edited file for 152Eu is given as demo/eu_autocal.sou.

The program will then find several peaks, work out the energy dispersion and attempt to integrate over all the peaks listed in the .sou file. The results will be displayed on the graphics window, and you will be requested to press <return> to proceed. Next a plot of the centroids, less the value expected if the spectrum was perfectly linear in energy, will be displayed on an expanded scale. Linear and quadratic fits will be performed to the results of the peak integration, and displayed on this plot; you will be given the opportunity to save the results in an energy calibration file with the same filename as the spectrum but with the filename extension changed to .aca.

The program also automatically saves the results of the peak integration in a standard radware-type .sin file, again with the same filename as the spectrum but with the filename extension changed to .sin. This file may be used to input the data to the programs effit and encal, or to deduce gain-correction coefficients for gain-matching different detectors.

If the command seems to have trouble finding the peaks, or integrating over what you gauge to be the correct region, try playing with the PeakFind (PF) parameters. It uses the FWHM parameter from PF to guess at the width of the region of the spectrum that it should inspect for peaks. If you have strong contaminant peaks at high energies in your spectrum, that could also confuse the peak-matching routine; you could add the contaminant to your .sou file or simply use SC to remove the offending peak(s) from the spectrum.

The second auto-calibration routine is run by the CA3 command, or Autocalibrate Spectrum (3) option in the info menu of xmgf3 or gf3x.

Unlike the first routine (1) above, this mode of calibration is for energy calibrations only, and uses just a simple two-point calibration. That is, it uses the energies and centroids of only two peaks to determine the energy dispersion and offset for each spectrum. Its main advantage is one of speed and reliability for multiple-spectrum files (such as .spk or .spn files); it is intended to produce calibrations for many spectra simultaneously.

This routine uses a "peak limits and info" (.lim) file to define ranges of spectra numbers to be processed, the energy and a range of channels to search for each of two different peaks, and an approximate FWHM for the peaks. An example of such a .lim file is given as demo/demo.lim, and listed below:

* limits for co60 2-point calib at ~0.35 keV/ch hires, 2keV/ch lores
* splo sphi   eg1   chlo1 chhi1     eg2   chlo2 chhi2  approx.fwhm
    1,   4, 1173.24, 3000, 3300,  1332.51, 3350, 3900,    7
    9,  11, 1173.24,  500,  620,  1332.51,  620,  720,   15

Here spectra IDs 1 through 4 will be searched for gamma 1173.24 keV over channels 3000 to 3300, and then for gamma 1332.51 keV over channels 3350 to 3900, with a FWHM of around 7 chs. Likewise spectra IDs 9 through 11 will be searched for gamma 1173.24 keV over channels 500 to 620, and for gamma 1332.51 keV over channels 620 to 720, with a FWHM of around 15 chs. Any number of spectra, with different resolutions and energy dispersions, can be treated this way in a single .lim file. Such .lim files must contain a minimum of one data line, but there is no maximum line count. Also, lines beginning with an asterisk (*) are treated as comments.

To run the CA3 routine, open the multiple-spectrum file you wish to process, by reading in at least one spectrum from it. Then type CA3, or select the appropriate menu item. The program will proceed through the peaks and through the .lim file data lines (spectrum ID ranges), displaying the integrated peaks and calculating the energy calibration coefficients for each spectrum. The results will be stored in a text-format output file with the filename extension .ca3, and containing one line for each spectrum ID successfully processed.

An example of a .ca3 output file follows:

 * gf3 autocalibrate type-3 output,  01-Apr-99 15:54:05
 * SP       A          B         CENT1   FWHM1     CENT2   FWHM2
    1    -2.033    .25462615    486.266   1.63   5537.703   2.31
    2     -.182    .26025367    468.639   1.68   5410.848   2.21
    3    -2.612    .24683824    503.952   1.68   5714.766   2.26
    4     1.876    .25990814    461.343   1.90   5410.122   2.40
    5      .849    .24480446    494.003   1.61   5748.106   2.20
    6    -2.091    .24093580    514.138   1.49   5852.606   2.41
    7      .069    .24572888    495.318   1.52   5729.656   2.29
    8    -2.861    .23925383    520.968   1.55   5896.966   2.35

Here the columns correspond to spectrum ID, energy offset and dispersion (in keV and keV/ch), and centroid (in chs) and FWHM (in keV) for the two peaks. This example was generated by processing 152Eu spectra.

A third type of auto-calibration routine is run by the CA4 command, or Autocalibrate Spectrum (4) option in the info menu of xmgf3 or gf3x. It is intended for an easy, simple two-point energy calibration of a single spectrum, when the user knows the energies of at least two peaks.

To run the CA4 routine, read in and display the spectrum spectrum, then type CA4 or select the appropriate menu item. You will be prompted to select two peaks with the graphics cursor; to select a peak, simply click on the spectrum within one FWHM of the centroid. You will then be asked to provide the energies of the two peaks. The energy calibration is then deduced, and becomes the defined gf3 calibration.

In order to facilitate providing the energies of the two peaks, you can create a file called calib.sou, either in the current working directory or in your home directory. Use the standard format for .sou files (see the demo directory for examples) and place in the file any gamma-ray lines that you wish to use for such calibrations. If a calib.sou file is found by the CA4 routine, the energies of the gammas listed in it will be printed on the screen, together with one-letter IDs for each energy. You can then use that ID to specify the energy, rather than typing the energy itself.

An example calib.sou is given in the demo directory.