FracMAP: A user-interactive package for performing simulation and orientation-specific morphology analysis of fractal-like solid nano-agglomerates

Computer simulation techniques have found extensive use in establishing empirical relationships between three-dimensional (3d) and two-dimensional (2d) projected properties of particles produced by the process of growth through the agglomeration of smaller particles (monomers). In this paper, we describe a package, FracMAP, that has been written to simulate 3d quasi-fractal agglomerates and create their 2d pixelated projection images by restricting them to stable orientations as commonly encountered for quasi-fractal agglomerates collected on filter media for electron microscopy. Resulting 2d images are analyzed for their projected morphological properties.Program summaryProgram title: FracMAPCatalogue identifier: AEDD_v1_0Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEDD_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.htmlNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 4722No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 27 229Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: C++Computer: PCOperating system: Windows, LinuxRAM: 2.0 MegabytesClassification: 7.7Nature of problem: Solving for a suitable fractal agglomerate construction under constraints of typical morphological parameters.Solution method: Monte Carlo approximation.Restrictions: Problem complexity is not representative of run-time, since Monte Carlo iterations are of a constant complexity.Additional comments: The distribution file contains two versions of the FracMAP code, one for Windows and one for Linux.Running time: 1 hour for a fractal agglomerate of size 25 on a single processor.