Pydidas: A tool for automated X-ray diffraction data analysis

Abstract

The processing and analysis of X-ray diffraction (XRD) data at synchrotrons is often left in the domain of the user groups which limits the user base to groups with a background in analyzing XRD data. Pydidas is a new python package for processing X-ray diffraction data. It aims to provide an easy and intuitive interface and versatile processing options to be usable also by non-experts in XRD analysis. A graphical user interface (GUI) allows users to perform the full pipeline of data browsing, experiment calibration, workflow setup, processing, and visualization in a single tool. In addition, pydidas’ logic is decoupled from the GUI and can also be fully used from within scripts or embedded into other processing pipelines. The pydidas processing pipeline is assembled from individual plugins which perform specific processing steps. This modular design allows for very versatile pipelines to cover a wide range of applications. To improve the usability even further, custom plugins can be integrated in the pydidas workflow to allow specialized processing steps.