HADES, A Code for Simulating a Variety of Radiographic Techniques

It is often useful to simulate radiographic images in order to optimize imaging trade-offs and to test tomographic techniques. HADES is a code that simulates radiography using ray tracing techniques. Although originally developed to simulate X-ray transmission radiography, HADES has grown to simulate neutron radiography over a wide range of energy, proton radiography in the 1 MeV to 100 GeV range, and recently phase contrast radiography using X-rays in the keV energy range. HADES can simulate parallel-ray or cone-beam radiography through a variety of mesh types, as well as through collections of geometric objects. HADES was originally developed for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) applications, but could be a useful tool for simulation of portal imaging, proton therapy imaging, and synchrotron studies of tissue. In this paper we describe HADES' current capabilities and discuss plans for a major revision of the code.