PyFAI: a Python library for high performance azimuthal integration on GPU

TL;DR

PyFAI is a Python library that accelerates azimuthal integration of X-ray diffraction images using GPU and accelerator parallelization techniques, enabling faster data processing for scientists.

Contribution

This work introduces a GPU-accelerated implementation of azimuthal integration in the PyFAI library, enhancing performance over previous CPU-based methods.

Findings

Significant speed-up in image processing times.

Effective parallelization on GPUs and accelerators.

Compatibility with high-performance computing devices.

Abstract

The pyFAI package has been designed to reduce X-ray diffraction images into powder diffraction curves to be further processed by scientists. This contribution describes how to convert an image into a radial profile using the Numpy package, how the process was accelerated using Cython. The algorithm was parallelised, needing a complete re-design to benefit from massively parallel devices like graphical processing units or accelerators like the Intel Xeon Phi using the PyOpenCL library.