Gamma Spectrometry Forum

My name is Christian Bechmann. I am a geologist and have been writing a program for evaluating gamma spectra for several years. You can find it on SourceForge.net -> OpenGammaSpec. It is not yet complete (and perhaps never will be). The program is licensed under the GPL, the source code is fully included, and I regularly publish updates. I develop it on Linux, but Windows and Raspberry Pi OS are also supported; however, the Linux version is always the most up-to-date. The focus is on the analysis of natural and processed natural samples, but artificial radionuclides are also supported.

We used gamma spectroscopy to detect the proportion of heavy minerals online during the gravimetric processing of fine sands. The primary focus was on rare earth minerals, which always contain a certain amount of radionuclides.

Some Tips for the first start of OpenGammaSpec.

Download the compressed file (Gamma.tar.bz2 for Linux, Gamma.zip for Windows or from the Folder RaspberryPi the file Gamma.tar.bz2 for Raspberry Pi 4B). Download the doc folder too, there you will find some useful HowTo’s.

Then extract the compressed file in your home folder. Now you have a folder ‘Gamma’. Depending from your OS you have an executable file included.

Create a Folder ‘Report_Gamma’ in your Documents folder (or wherever you wont) for report data.

The program uses an init.csv to find the necessary path names. This file looks like this:

Unit element value
main UserDir /home/christian/
main HomeDir /home/christian/Gamma
main HelpDir /home/christian/Gamma/HTML_doc
main HelpURL file:///home/christian/Gamma/HTML_doc
main SpectrumDir /home/christian/Gamma/all_rawfiles
main SampleDir /home/christian/Gamma
main NuclidDir /home/christian/Gamma
main RawDataDir /home/christian/Gamma/all_rawfiles
main ReportDir /home/christian/Dokumente/Report_Gamma

…

and the path names are of course wrong. At the first start the program try to correct the entry's, but there is an other easy way to correct:

If your user name is ‘steven’ then replace ‘christian’ by ‘steven’ and save this file. Don’t forget the path of the report directory.

Now you can start the program the program by double-click to the executable file. For Linux users: If you create a starter, use the file startGamma.sh but first make it executable.

New versions of OpenGammaSpec are regularly made available on sourceforge.net. The files are compressed, as Gamma.tar.bz2 for Linux and as Gamma.zip for Windows.

Repeatedly reinstalling new versions is annoying, which is why an upgrade function has been provided on SourceForge.net. It is called UpgradeGamma.sh and is a simple shell script. Currently, it is available for the Linux version, but it can be easily adapted for Windows.

Updating an existing installation of OpenGammaSpec brings new features and bug fixes, but it always carries a small residual risk. A small HowTo is located in the 'doc/HowTo' folder.

The upgrade function assumes that OpenGammaSpec has been installed in the 'Gamma' folder in the home directory and that the file 'Gamma.tar.bz2' is located in the Downloads folder (the default setting). If this is not the case, you can adjust the upgradeGamma.sh script accordingly.

Important note: The upgrade function will not work correctly if you have recompiled OpenGammaSpec after the release date of the version.

First, download the upgradeGamma.sh file from SourceForge.net/OpenGammaSpec. You now need to make the file executable. This can be done either with the file manager or in the terminal.

It is a good idea to make a backup copy of the entire 'Gamma' folder before running the upgrade, so that you can undo the upgrade if necessary.

Now run the upgradeGamma.sh script in the terminal.

The script first checks whether it is being run on a Linux system, then extracts the file 'Gamma.tar.bz2' in the Downloads folder, and finally replaces all older files in the 'Gamma' folder with newer ones.

If you had created a launcher, you should now see the new version.

You can now compile OpenGammaSpec if you wish. If you encounter any problems with this, you can also use 'Clean up and Build'. Further information can be found in the HowTo mentioned above.