Pydidas: a tool for automated X-ray diffraction data analysis

The processing and analysis of X-ray diffraction (XRD) data at synchrotrons is often left to the user groups, which limits the user base to groups with a background in analyzing XRD data. Pydidas is a new Python package for processing XRD data. It provides an easy and intuitive interface and versatile processing options with the aim of being accessible to non-experts in XRD analysis. A graphical user interface (GUI) allows users to perform the full pipeline of data browsing, experiment calibration, workflow setup, processing and visualization in a single tool. In addition, pydidas' logic is decoupled from the GUI and it can be fully used from within scripts or embedded into other processing pipelines. The pydidas processing pipeline is assembled from individual plugins which perform specific processing steps. This modular design allows for very versatile pipelines covering a wide range of applications. To improve the usability even further, custom plugins can be integrated in the pydidas workflow to allow specialized processing steps.