Naming conventions

This document describes our naming convention for geometry parts (solids, volumes, materials, surfaces, …).

• volume names:

  • snake_case, e.g. lar or fiber_support_outer

    • exception: detector names are used as-is, e.g. V01234A or S035

  • volumes that are named after other components should always prefix their own name, to simplify selection of such volumes by regex (e.g., for vertex sampling). Example: The PEN plate for detector V01234A should be named pen_V01234A.

• the names of corresponding solids, logical and physical volumes in GDML should usually be the same

  • exception: multiple placements of one LV need unique multiple physical volume names

  • this does not always translate to python variable names. It might be necessary to use unique names for logical and physical volume instances in code (i.e. to attach surfaces)

  • python variables names are not generally expected to follow the geometry names, but should if possible.

  • physical volume names should be prefixed with a descriptive name of the overall system, for example fibers_inner_ for fibers in the inner barrel, or pen_ for pen-plates. This is to enable simple wildcards/regular expressions to select all volumes of the same type in _re

• surfaces:

  • surface_{from}_to_{to} for OpticalSurfaces (property definition)

  • bsurface_{from}_{to} for border surfaces * ssurface_{to} for skin surfaces

• materials:

  • snake_case similar to volumes, e.g. metal_copper.

  • Elements use capitalized names, e.g. Hydrogen