Nika: 2-D Data Reduction for SAXS and WAXS

Nika is an Igor Pro-based package for correction, calibration and reduction of two-dimensional area-detector data into one-dimensional data (sometimes called lineouts). It is open source and highly flexible and runs within the commercial Igor Pro framework.  Nika is typically used for small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data, but it can also be used for grazing-incidence SAXS data, wide-angle diffraction data and even small-angle neutron scattering data. It has been available to the user community since about 2005, and it is widely used at the SAXS instruments of many large-scale facilities as their main data reduction package. It is also suitable for desktop instruments to supplement manufacturer-supplied software. Since the source code is open, it can be scrutinized, verified and modified by users to suit their needs.

 

 

Distribution & Impact

Nika can be freely downloaded as described at the package home page. To run Irena, one must also install the commercial Igor Pro software package, version 6.x. Note that a fully functional 30 day demo version is available from the Wavemetrics web site and is sufficient for testing use of Irena package.

A manual of over 90 pages is distributed with the software.Instructional movies are available on YouTube.

The primary Nika reference [Ilavsky, J. (2012). Nika: software for two-dimensional data reduction. Journal Of Applied Crystallography, 45(2), 324-328.has been cited over 60 times and there are 129 registered users (both as of February 2015). Users are encouraged to register for mailing list.

Nika is used as primary data reduction package at the APS USAXS instrument (9ID) as well as many other SAXS and SANS instruments around the world.

 

Funding Source

This project has been produced using operational funding from the APS, contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.

 

Please cite

Ilavsky, J. (2012). Nika: software for two-dimensional data reduction. Journal Of Applied Crystallography, 45(2), 324-328. doi:10.1107/S0021889812004037

 

 

Future work

Nika is recently being extended to provide export of 2-dimensional corrected and calibrated data in CanSAS standard format. These data will be usable for 2-dimensional modeling data packages, which are being developed.