TomTime

time and amplitude picking Windows software

TomTime runs under Windows and provides automatic picking and manual repicking, if necessary, of traveltimes and amplitudes for common seismograph and crosshole radar waveform files.

The display to the left shows traces 34 to 51 from a 146trace seismograph file. Red squares are auto-picks. Blue dots and arrows are final picks, which usually can be left at the auto-pick positions with good data. Green and blue-green amplitude dots (hard to see in this small view) are on the three peaks following the time pick. Trace 35 was labeled dead, so the time is 0. The magnified display in the small box facilitates examining auto-picks and manual repicking. TomTime special features to aid the user: Reads common seismograph and crosshole radar waveform files. Versatile filtering and display options. Frequency spectra of traces can be plotted and recorded before and after filtering. Traces can be overlaid to help pick S-wave traveltimes. Many years of program development guided by processing field data. Output formatted as input for the 3-D tomography program GeoTomCG. Instrucciones sumarias en espaol e ingls, summary instructions in Spanish and English. TomTime provides features such as filtering and overlaying of traces to help obtain accurate time picks and amplitudes, even in noisy data. The display to the left contains three files of VSP data collected with a 3-D geophone set. The first three channels were collected with a P-wave source. The next three channels were collected with an S-wave source moving in one direction. The last three channels, shown overlain in red on channels 4-6, were collected with the S-wave source moving in the opposite direction. Channels not of interest were marked dead, so their times were set to zero.

TomTime features and options: TomTime provides automatic picking and manual repicking, if necessary, of traveltimes and amplitudes for common seismograph and crosshole radar waveform files. Output is in the format used for input by the 3-D tomographic program GeoTomCG. The user can choose whether output files provide times and amplitudes, or just times. Times picked with automatic picking are first-breaks or first-peaks, and amplitudes are on the first, second, and third peaks following the time pick. (These amplitudes must be processed before being used as input for GeoTomCG.) Minimum and maximum time limits can be set to guide the auto-picking. Times and amplitude positions can be reset manually. TomTime can also write and read ASCII files of the waveforms. These files provide header information followed by columns of data, one column for each channel. This feature allows data to be examined with a spreadsheet. TomTime provides versatile filtering and display options. Filtering options include smoothing with Parzen filters, low-cut filters from 10 Hz to 600 Hz, high-cut filters from 10 Hz to 2000 Hz, and notch filters for 50, 60, 150, and 180 Hz. Frequency spectra for individual and selected combinations of traces can be plotted before and after filtering and saved in a file for spectral decomposition in attenuation investigations. The user can display any sequential set of traces, so traces with high signal-to-noise ratios can guide the picking of times in noisier traces. Alternatively, the user can display few traces so each trace can be of large amplitude on the screen. A zoom option allows the display of any time range. An optional coordinate file can reduce the need for manual entry of 3-D source and receiver coordinates. The user can assign each source and receiver position an identifying integer, and prepare a coordinate file that lists each source and receiver position and the corresponding identifier only once. The source and first receiver in each seismograph waveform file can be designated by identifiers added to the waveform file name. TomTime can read the coordinate file before reading waveform files, and assign coordinates corresponding to the identifiers. After the coordinate file has been read, another display option allows times from a GeoTomCG data file to be displayed on the traces. TomTime reads the coordinates in the data file and matches them with those in the coordinate file described above. It then displays the times from the data file on the appropriate traces. GeoTomCG can provide a data file of calculated times, so calculated times from tomographic inversions can be displayed on the traces. GeoTomCG is described separately. TomTime and GeoTomCG were developed and are revised and supported by GeoTom, LLC. Technical questions should be sent to sales@geotom.net. GeoTom welcomes suggestions for improving the software and the manuals.