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Ground Motion Processing Software at the U.S. Geological Survey: New Collaborations and Contributions

Description: 

For many years the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintained software called “amptools” for basic waveform processing and intensity metric calculations in support of ShakeMap. In 2018, this software was renamed “gmprocess” and expanded to support more waveform processing protocols, a wider range of intensity measures, additional data formats, provenance tracking, and many other improvements. These improvements increase run time, and thus gmprocess does not replace leaner real-time processing software. These changes also resulted in the software being useful for more general research projects that required processed ground motion time histories and metrics. The expanded user base of gmprocess has led to vast improvements due to the identification and resolution of previously unknown bugs (e.g., an error in how the signal-to-noise was normalized) and refinements to the processing algorithms (e.g., selection of filter corner frequencies, preferring frequency-domain differentiation and integration). Furthermore, many new users have contributed code and developed new features. One of the most frequently requested features that was not previously available in gmprocess is a graphical user interface (GUI) for reviewing processed waveforms, and two GUIs have been contributed to gmprocess; one from developers at the University of California Los Angeles, and another from Geoscience Australia, both of which were developed in close collaboration with the USGS. In addition, the core gmprocess team has developed new tools for managing and reviewing data for large projects, including queuing processing jobs and monitoring completion status. The gmprocess developers are also collaborating with the USGS National Strong Motion Project and California Geological Survey to benchmark the software employed by each group to resolve discrepancies and facilitate consistent results as the software continues to evolve. This type of benchmarking has led to important improvements to gmprocess.

Session: ShakeMap-related Research, Development, Operations, Applications and Uses

Type: Oral

Date: 4/19/2023

Presentation Time: 05:15 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Eric M. Thompson

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors