This is a very hands on workshop with plenty of detailed practical examples helping me to progress significantly further than I thought I would in just one week. Much of this progress should be attributed to Randy, the workshop tutor. His teaching style is excellent, the depth of knowledge he has is remarkable and he took the time to clearly explain concepts if they were not understood by all. VisEd is a incredible tool for MCNP users and I would recommended this workshop to anyone wishing to learn more about MCNP/VisEd, regardless of their experience. Thanks Randy for a fantastic workshop!
Ben Mirza - Magnox, UK, January 2015
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In addition to being a good course for beginners, this is an excellent refresher course for those who only intermittently use MCNP or MCNPX (once or twice a year). I highly recommend this course for intermittent users who learned via the “old school” method and have never used the visual editor. Having someone walk you through the Visual Editor such that you can easily move between windows to view the geometry, and explain how the visual editor interacts with the code such as through the input deck can dramatically reduce the stress level of building a model using the visual editor. In addition, learning how the Visual Editor can be used to plot the particle tracks for importance and optimization make this course well worth the time and cost.

Timothy Taulbee - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. April 2010, Las Vegas, NV

I had some limited experience before the class, but I would like to say that I would definitely recommend this course to the new users. Because of a smaller class size Instructor adapts to the needs of students better then in a larger groups, students also get a lot more help and attention from the instructor. It might not cover 100% of material other classes cover, but this allows more time to focus on basics. I would strongly recommend taking this course before taking any other MCNP class, it lays a great foundation and shows how to simplify creating input file by using Visual Editor. Time saving is tremendous and VisEd makes it so much easier to see mistakes which is crucial for beginner.  When I explain what VisEd does for MCNP users I use Excel and Visual Basic analogy. Knowing Visual Basic helps, but most of the time all you need is Excel, which does the job.  Class was arranged in a very good manner, didn’t put pressure by loading us with too much information and providing enough free time to study or explore the city.  Randy is a great teacher! He not only cares a lot about Everybody understanding the course but also tried to make our stay in Seattle enjoyable, giving us tips on sightseeing and transportation options. Randy, thank very much for taking us to the Sky Restaurant at the Space needle, the view was amazing and it was great to get to know each other a little better!

Olga Belooussova - LANL - January 2010, Seattle, WA

The class is a great way to begin learning about visual editor and MCNP. There is plenty of time to work through problems, ask questions and really learn how to use the program for yourself. It isn’t just show and tell, it is hands on work, and that is really how you learn something.

Ryan Smith   - Bechtel National Inc., November 2009, Las Vegas, NV

I think, this is a great class. Being a novice, I was able to keep up with more experienced participants. The material is very well presented. It’s a great advantage that students take the exercises and class materials home – this way, one can easily refresh his memory if something is forgotten. Also, having these materials and software is very helpful for everyday use of MCNP/VISED. And of course, I do not understand how anyone can work with MCNP without using VISED. VISED makes life so much easier.

Dali Georgobiani - Michigan State University, November 2009, Las Vegas, NV

Excellent class! I learned so much from this class! I impressed my boss the first week after coming back from this class! I can do many things I never thought I could do with MCNP before. I am able to check my source, geometry, particle track and make complicated badge designs which I couldn’t do at all before! For somebody like me who has little programming experience, it is a great introductory class; you will be surprised how easy Visual Editor will make you life. You can explain very abstract theory by a pretty picture and it is easy to understand, isn’t it amazing!!

Zhenghua Xia - Landauer.  November 2009, Las Vegas, NV

This visual editor class and software make MCNP very accessible for the first time user. After one week of training I feel confident in my ability to put together some fairly complicated geometries. Without the visual editor software I do not think that would be the case.

Douglas Dempsey - Idaho National Laboratory. May 2009, Las Vegas, NV

The Visual Editor allows one to create mcnp inputs “almost” effortlessly and aids in better understanding of results through the ability to visualize the problem.  For anyone who has avoided mcnp in the past, I highly recommend the visual editor as a superior way to learn mcnp.

Michael Polewski - Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation May 2009, Las Vegas, NV

The class was definitely very useful to me, and I would recommend it to all users and developers of MCNP. It helped produce input files for MCNP much faster and easier, and probably even more important, the visualization provided by the Visual Editor helps me understand much better the results and the physics of the simulated problem.
Rosalie Multari, Applied Research Associates. January 2009, Las Vegas, NV

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The class was definitely very useful to me, and I would recommend it to all users and developers of MCNP. It helped produce input files for MCNP much faster and easier, and probably even more important, the visualization provided by the Visual Editor helps me understand much better the results and the physics of the simulated problem.
Stepan Mashnik- Los Alamos National Laboratory, On Site Custom class, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sept. 2008

First of all, Randy is definitely the type of person you will want to learn from for a class like this. His personality and teaching method ensure that you are going to fully understand what you are doing and catch on quickly. Second, the power of the visual editor is unbelievable. With what I have learned, I can safely say that I no longer consider code creation to be of a comparable time length to problem setup and output analysis.
Andrew Statch—Bechtel National Inc, July 2008, Seattle, WA

The Visual Editor provides tools for creating complex geometries rather easily and includes error checking and 2-D and 3-D visualization to assist in the interpretation. When you look at the code that is generated you can only wonder as to how it would be possible to do this otherwise and how you could ever validate that what you have is what you want or is correct.
Cye Waldman - Information Systems Laboratories, September 2007, Richland WA

I believe this is a great course for users at any level.  I had never used the Visual Editor or MCNP before the class but the curriculum is so thorough and so well laid out that I was able to keep up with users with many years of experience, who also expressed considerable satisfaction with the class.  The best part is that the class can be taken again and again after you leave using the supplied manuals, exercises, and software.  The tools from the class become a valuable resource for general use of the Visual Editor and MCNP.  It was probably the best week I have ever spent learning anything associated with the nuclear industry.
Kelly Ellis - Lucas Engineering and Management Services, July 2007, Seattle WA

VISED is an exceptional tool for both novice and experienced users. This class offered me the opportunity to explore its full capabilities - as both a geometry generator and a visualization tool.
Dick Olsher - Los Alamos National Laboratory, September 2006, Richland, WA

MCNP has needed a graphics interface for a long time.  The Visual Editor provides this interface, and much, much, more.  The code displays geometry, of course, but can also be used to create geometry and display 3-D depictions of modeled objects with various color schemes.  These features make the code and the training provided by the class essential to anyone who has wondered if an MCNP input file depicted the problem geometry accurately, assigned the materials to the right cells, and placed the sources properly.  In addition, the code can plot tallies, and can plot points where source particles are created, where collisions occur, and where interactions that contribute to tallies take place.  Such plots reveal phenomena like radiation streaming, and show which parts of the model contribute to tallies.

Every MCNP user should acquire the Visual Editor and participate in the Visual Editor Consultants class.  The gains in analytical power and productivity will far out weight the expenditure of time and money.
Carl Koizumi - S.M. Stoller Corp, September 2004, Richland, WA