TGeo plugin

General

The TGeo plugin connects a geometry described with the ROOT::Geom module with Acts. This is done by parsing the ROOT geometry and selecting TGeoNode objects that represent chosen geometrical objects. ACTS detector elements are represented by surfaces with dedicated shapes, hence a conversion of the volume based TGeoNode description into Acts::Surface objects needs to take place.

An example use of the TGeo plugin can be found in the TGeoDetector example.

Parsing the ROOT Geometry

Once a geometry is imported in ROOT, it can be accessed via the gGeoManager. The Acts::TGeoLayerBuilder, which implements an Acts::ILayerBuilder, relies on the fact that this gGeoManager is accessible, if it points to nullptr, obviously no conversion is done. The Acts::TGeoLayerBuilder can be configured to search within given parsing ranges for TGeoNode objects to be converted into Acts::Surface objects. A vector of search strings can be used for situations where multiple sensor types are used or additional objects are bound to be described. A dedicated Acts::TGeoParser struct is then used to select the nodes from the ROOT geometry.

Conversion of TGeoShapes to Acts::Surfaces

An automatic translation of TGeoShape objects into corresponding Acts::Surface objects with appropriate bound descriptions is done by the Acts::TGeoSurfaceConverter class. There is some limited freedom in re-defining the orientation of the coordinate system between ROOT and ACTS which can be used to adapt local coordinate definitions on the converted objects. This is indicated by the const std::string& axes argument of the converter.

The nomenclature/convention is the following:

• the resulting local cartesian coordinate system must by right-handed: this is guaranteed by the fact that the third local axis is constructed as a cross product of the first two local axis

• defining the new local axes with respect to the TGeo definition is done by naming the new axes in order, e.g. an unchanged coordinate system has the tag XYZ, or XY*, as the third axis is defined by the first two ones

• flipping the direction of a axis is done by lower capital, e.g. yZ* redefines the negative y-axis of the TGeoMatrix as the (obviously) positive x-axis of the Acts::Transform3 and redefines the positive z-axis of the TGeoMatrix as corresponding y-axis of the Acts::Transform3

In case a translation request is malformed, a std::exception is thrown, indicating the problem.

Examples of supported TGeoShape transformations to Acts::Surface objects can be found in the Tests/UnitTests/Plugins/TGeo unit test suite, a summary of the output can be seen below.

Additionally, an option exists to split surfaces after the transformation has taken place by adding a splitter implementation to the Acts::TGeoLayerBuilder, like the Acts::TGeoCylinderDiscSplitter. This can be useful to describe e.g. a cylindrical detector with tangential planar surfaces.

Fig. 36 Conversion of a TGeoBBox shape into a Acts::PlaneSurface with Acts::RectangleBounds. All axes iterations are allowed for this conversion.

Fig. 37 Conversion of a TGeoTrd1 shape into a Acts::PlaneSurface with Acts::TrapezoidBounds. The axes definitions need to be (x/X)(z/Z)(*/*).

Fig. 38 Conversion of a TGeoTrd2 shape into a Acts::PlaneSurface with Acts::TrapezoidBounds. The axes definitions shown are (x/X)(z/Z)(*/*), the second coordinate has to be the z-axis.

Fig. 39 Conversion of a TGeoTrd2 shape into a Acts::PlaneSurface with Acts::TrapezoidBounds. The axes definitions shown are (y/Y)(z/Z)(*/*), the second coordinate has to be the z-axis.

Fig. 40 Conversion of a TGeoTube shape into a Acts::CylinderSurface with Acts::CylinderBounds. The axes definitions has to be (x/X)(y/Y)(*/*).

Fig. 41 Conversion of a TGeoTube shape into a Acts::DiscSurface with Acts::DiscBounds.The axes definitions has to be (x/X)(y/Y)(*/*).