A guided tour of COMPASS.

The COMPASS software was designed to facilitate the use of MARSSIM and guide the user into making informed decisions in designing final status radiological surveys. COMPASS also simplifies the application of the statistical tests by performing the statistical calculations and providing prospective power curves that help in determining what level of confidence the user is willing to accept for a particular number of measurements or samples for a survey unit. After performing the final status survey, COMPASS assesses the data for comparison to the release criteria. The purpose of this article is to provide the COMPASS user with an overview of the features of the software and to demonstrate how COMPASS implements the MARSSIM guidance.