To SIMION Users,
I have some long awaited news on SIMION. As you may know, there has not been a major new release of SIMION in some years following the retirement of lead SIMION developer David Dahl at what is now Idaho National Labs (INL). Still, SIMION remains widely used and its user base continues to grow at a steady rate. Obviously, as in any piece of software, customers desire changes and improvements. As a distributor of SIMION for INL, our company Scientific Instrument Services, Inc. (SIS) has heard feedback from many users, comments of where SIMION gets things right (the simplicity/directness, interactiveness to aid intuition, affordability, and it's a ability/flexibility to solve a wide variety of real problems) and where it falls short (e.g. the user interface and programming interface are due for an overhaul and some nagging quirks like the file directory limit need fixed). It's obvious that SIMION needs an active maintainer. SIS has pursued this issue for some time, and in the meantime we had started up simion.com and developed the toolkit accessory package. The good news is that the SIS has completed the required contract, and its rights to maintain the SIMION source code become effective July 1, 2005. My main job over the year (and possibly much longer) will be to manage this project and bring about SIMION 8.0 (and likely 7.x or development/beta releases along the way, which will require testers).
In the meantime, some planning is being done, and we appreciate all feedback as to what you would like to see improved in SIMION, whether in general or on very specific points. After all, you are the users of the software, and it is your requirements that must be met. (Vacuum conditions may be desirable for ion optics, but for software development it is not.) You may post comments on the discussion board or call/e-mail me. I will also be at the ASMS meeting in San Antonio Texas next week, and we can discuss anything there as well. SIS will be at booth #61, and I will plan to stop by at some of your posters. Also, as in last year, you may stop by and ask some question on using SIMION (I will bring a laptop with SIMION and even CPO and other such software).
Over the coming month, new tools will be added to the SIMION web site to better support the development process. For example, this SIMION discussion group will be moved to simion.com to better manage multiple levels of discussion (e.g. Announcements, User Support, and Development). The new forum is at
http://www.simion.com/discuss
(Some changes may be made here in the next few days as things are finalized, but you are welcome to try it out.) Further details will follow.
For those attending ASMS, below is the list of all posters that are related to SIMION (or at least have SIMION mentioned in the abstract).
ASMS Posters on SIMION
Session Code Title
MOFam 11:35 Implications of miniaturising Linear Ion Trap arrays
for portable detectors (includes CPO)
MP16 258 Performance and Modeling of a Small TOF Mass
Spectrometer used in Aerosol Sampling
MP16 261 Countering the turn-around time effect in orthogonal TOF MS
MP16 266 Advantages of a Three-Field Source Over a Two-
Field Source in a Multipurpose Tandem Time of
Flight Mass Spectrometer
MP16 268 The Development of Novel Resistive Glass Technology for
Tailoring Electric Fields in Ion Mobility and Mass
Spectrometer Applications.
MP16 270 Single Particle Analysis of MALDI using Bio-Aerosol
Mass Spectrometry
MP16 271 Electrospray Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass
Spectrometry (ESI-TOFMS) with microfabricated
Beam Modulation Devices
ThOEam 11:15The Ion Conveyor: A New Ion Optical Device for
Improved Focusing and Sensitivity
ThP12 173 Developing Electrospray Charge Detection Mass
Spectrometry as a Nanoparticle Injector for X-ray
Free Electron Laser Diffraction Imaging
ThP12 174An Advanced Laser Desorption Ionization Ion Source
with Controlled Superposition of Electric and
Pneumatic Fields
ThP12 177 Surface Induced Dissociation (SID) in a Quadrupole
Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer
ThP12 180 Surface-Surface (Ping-Pong)
Neutralization-Reionization Mass Spectrometry
ThP13 199 Axial Field Characteristics in an RF-only Linear
Ion Trap with End Lenses
ThP13 200 Strategies to reduce the effects of field
imperfections in quadrupole ion traps
ThP13 214 Miniaturization of mass spectrometers based on
sub millimeter cylindrical ion traps
TODpm 03:40Kinetic Investigation of Peptide Fragmentation
in a MALDI TOF SID TOF Mass Spectrometer
TODpm 04:20Linear Ion Trap with Axial Ejection as a Source
for a TOF MS
TP11 199 Efficient Ion Transmission Through a Quadrupole
Mass Filter and into a Linear Octopole Trap
TP11 201 Physical Characterization and Optimization of
Electron Capture Dissociation in Fourier
Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry
TP11 212 Octopole Ion Guide Transmission Efficiency in a
High Magnetic Field for FT-ICR MS
TP11 215 SIMION Modeling of Methods to Control Time-of-Flight
Dispersion of Externally Generated Ions in High
Field FT-ICR MS
TP12 223 Electron Capture Dissociation in RF Quadrupole
devices: A New Method to Trap Ions and
Low-Energy Electrons
TP12 247 SIMULATION OF INTERNAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF
PEPTIDES IN ELECTROSPRAY IONIZATION
WOFam 10:15Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass
Spectrometry: Overview of Recent Technique and
Instrumentation Developments
WP08 122 Ion Motion Control in the Orbitrap Mass Analyzer
WP08 126 Fabrication of Cylindrical Ion Traps Using
Selectively Plated Non-Conducting Materials
WP08 127 Ion Funnels for the Masses: Experiments and
Simulations with a Simplified Ion Funnel
WP08 128 Toward Single Cell Detection-Development of A
Novel Bioaerosol Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometer
WP08 136 Beam Dynamics in a High Resolution Multi-Pass
Time of Flight Mass Separator
WP08 138 Transmission of Ions Through Laminated Conductance
Pathways from Atmospheric Pressure
WP19 3423D Particle-In-Cell Code for Simulations of Ion
Motion in the Presence of Magnetic Field
For full abstracts on these posters, go to the ASMS web site at
http://www.asms.org/abstracts/webform1.aspx
Click "Search", in "Full Text Word Search" enter "simion", click "Begin Search", and click "Print View".
News Flash
INL and SIS Agree to Develop SIMION Ion Optics Software
The U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory and Scientific Instrument Services Inc. (SIS) of Ringoes, NJ have joined in a new license agreement to develop and maintain the software code for the SIMION suite of ion optics modeling software. The agreement will allow SIS to enhance, update and maintain the software, to satisfy the needs of the user community, benefit the industrial partner and the government.
SIMION 3D, originally developed by INL employee David Dahl, is an award-winning Windows PC based program, widely used by manufacturers and designers of mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, electron multipliers and other scientific instruments to study the optics of charged particles through electric and magnetic fields in two and three dimensions. SIMION is designed to provide direct and highly interactive methods, balancing ease-of-use, speed, accuracy, and affordability in order to simulate a variety of real-world ion optics problems. SIMION can model complex problems using a workbench strategy that can hold up to 200 2-D and/or 3-D electrostatic or magnetic field arrays, each of up to 50,000,000 points, which the user can visualize in 3D and cut away to inspect ion trajectories and potential energy surfaces to gain intuition and collect quantitative data.
SIMION is so pervasive, and so influential that in 1998, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) recognized that "the application of SIMION has been invaluable to the design of mass spectrometers (the kinds of machines that SIMION simulates) for the last decade."
SIS has distributed SIMION since 1996 and has more recently developed accessory tools to expand the capabilities of SIMION to include the importation of CAD files directly into SIMION, a new compiler and other tools requested by customers. Similar features along with an updated user interface are planned for inclusion in the next major release of SIMION. SIS has also established a SIMION web site (www.simion.com) to provide customers with information and support on SIMION. SIS warmly welcomes any comments or suggestions from the SIMION community on the future direction of the SIMION software.
Established in 1978, Scientific Instrument Services specializes in supplies and services for mass spectrometers and related scientific and medical equipment. The company distributes its products via a catalog and through its web site (www.sisweb.com). SIS also designs and manufactures filaments, probes and other instrument accessories for OEM's in the scientific and medical market. With more than 30 employees, SIS's staff includes sales, technicians, machinists, engineers, programmers and product development/support specialists.
The INL is a science-based, applied engineering national laboratory dedicated to supporting the U.S. Department of Energy's missions in environment, energy, science and national security. The INL is operated for the DOE by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC.
I look for forward a long collaboration with the SIMION user base,
David Manura
Scientific Instrument Services, Inc.
www.sisweb.com / www.simion.com
(<< Supplies and Services for Mass Spectrometers, Gas Chromatographs and Liquid Chromatographs)