AmaSeis: An IRIS program to acquire seismometer data

The IRIS AmaSeis program is for use with the AS-1 seismometer.

Fetch Version 3.0 Level 2009.11.12 here: AmaSeisSetup.exe.

If you have installed an earlier version, or you want to use level 2009.11.24 (see below) all you need fetch and extract is the executable which is in the self-extracting file: AmaSeisUpgrade.exe.

A set of auxiliary programs are available for uploading and downloading real-time data: AmaSeisAuxSetup.exe. (Updated April 17, 2009))

Changes:

• Version 3.0 2009.11.24: At request of Larry Braile and Jim Lindsey, allow the AmaSeis screen to be resized. This allows AmaSeis to share the screen with other applications.
• Version 3.0 2009.11.12: Fix a problem reported by Tammy Bravo that when you hover the mouse over a helicorder screen, the hour changes at the line instead of half-way between lines as it should. Fixed.
• Version 3.0 2009.10.10: Add station latitude and longitude on top margin. This was necessary since when AmaSeis saves the screen image, that image does not contain the Windows caption line which has the station location.
• Version 3.0 2009.09.30: Same as Level 2009.09.30 but that version did not get uploaded properly to the web.
• Version 3.0 2009.08.29: Geoff Collinson and Tammy Bravo reported that, since the change of 2007.07.25, marking for extraction of an event is off by one-half a line. Fixed.
• Version 3.0 2009.07.25: Add border to top and right of screen for better appearance. Move version information from top of screen to lower margin since the top position does not show up on a screen capture.
• Version 3.0 2009.07.20: Changed the screen image from a Windows bitmap to a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file which is much smaller than a bitmap -- typically less than 10% the size of a bitmap. This work was done with encouragement from Paul Denton and Kay Wyatt. Initially AmaSeis produce a completely black screen image if AmaSeis was running minimized. Now a proper screen image is produced even when minimized. Also, with the suggestion of Kay Wyatt, add the Station Code to the lower-right of the screen.
• Version 2.3 2009.07.01: Add feature to allow automatic upload of screen images to a web site.
• Version 2.2 2009.03.19: Fixed a bug that kept a user from running when there is no seismometer attached.
• Version 2.2 2009.02.23: Made a change to save settings at time changes are made instead of waiting until AmaSeis is closed. In this way the changes will be saved even if the program terminates unexpectantly.
• Version 2.2 2009.02.19: Mark Noel made changes to the HS-3 seismometer which required a change be made to AmaSeis.
• Version 2.2 2009.01.24: Roger Sparks pointed out that the current partial-hour file is not saved when you exit from AmaSeis. Fixed.
• Version 2.2 2008.11.16: Add documentation for sharing real-time data via TCP/IP and near-real-time data using FTP. Also, add help information at top-left of Stations program to tell how to pan and zoom. Change the install program from an old 16-bit version of InstallShield to a newer version which will run on 64-bit Windows Vista. Fixed a problem identified by Jim Nicholson that prevented  data from SEPUK-1 seismometer from working. Remove diskette distribution media since installation fits on one diskette.
• Version 2.1 2008.06.21: Change name of Rockwave HS-1 to Rockwave HS-3 due to another device being called the HS-1.
• Version 2.0 2008.05.12: Add support for Rockwave HS-1 Horizontal Seismometer. Make some improvements so that AmaSeis doesn't crash when running without a device attached.
• Version 2.0 2008.06.03: Geogg Collnson pointed out that the real-time data from a TCP/IP connection stopped working in the 2008.05.14 version. Fixed
• Version 2.0 2008.05.14: Add support for the HS-1 The Rockwave horizontal seismometer. Improve stability when running without a device attached.
• Version 2.0 2008.05.13: Even with the fix below, the timing with the 158U had an error of 2% to 3%. Fixed.
• Version 2.0 2008.05.10: Gary Barker found that when using the DATAQ 158U A2D that the data rate was one-half of the rate specified. This caused the trace to fill only one half of the hour record each hour. Fixed. Also the DATAQ 194 was generating a low-level noise signal of about 7 sec period. This was produced due to coupling from the unit's signal generator. Was able to disable it and have the noise disappear.
• Version 2.0 2008.02.02: Jerry Cook pointed out that this new version had a problem with missing DLL files. This is because I switched to multi-threaded libraries and forgot to include them. This has now been fixed.
• Version 2.0 2008.02.02: At request of John Lahr, Normalized the Fourier Transform so that when analyzing noise, the amplitude remains relatively constant as you extract different length signsls. Stations program in AmaSeisAux now automatically downloads the IRISEdStations.xml file from the IRIS download site.
• Version 2.0 2007.07.18: Fixed a bug that caused a crash when downloading a very small hour file. Fixed Upload.exe so it will not upload a very small file.
• Version 2.0 2007.07.12: If you don't have a seismometer, you can now download data from an IRIS ftp site.
• Version 2.0 2007.05.17: Made the travel-time curves blue (P-waves) and green (S-waves) for ease of use. Also made them wider. Add support for sharing data between computers using TCP/IP and FTP. An improved form of the long-period filter was provided by Bob McClure. This improves the viewing of seismograms with time periods in the range of 10 to 20 seconds. You can select it from the Controls menu on the Event Screen.
• 2006.07.25: Added support for new seismometer: EQ-1.
• 2006.06.25: John Lahr pointed out that, due to a change made on 2006.06.23. the pick marks are not at the right place on the seismogram on the travel-time screen. Fixed.
• 2006.06.23: John Lahr asked for a number of changes and fixes. John's comments in italics.
  1. In the event window, no matter what filter is applied, the label says "long period filter."Actually, it was worse than that. It was kind of unpredictable what the text would say. Fixed.
  2. If you filter in the event window, then select part of the filtered trace to look at, the "unfilter" button does not actually unfilter the data. Fixed.
  3. If you pick arrival times and then select part of the window for more detailed viewing, the picks move to the wrong location. Fixed.
  4. When the Pick button is pressed, the directions for how to make pick and view the travel time curve are printed on top of the event label. The writing that used to appear right on the event screen, now appears in a small information window which can be moved out of the way if you wish.
  5. In the travel time curve window, the line through the seismogram is often offset from the center of the trace. This makes it a bit confusing when lining things up. Fixed.
  6. In the helicorder window, to get to the current time, it might be better to be parallel to the "go to date-time" option, so the item would be "go to current time." Done.
• 2006.05.16: Dave Saum and John Lahr detected an error which kept the user from extracting an earthquake from the helicorder screen. Fixed.
• 2006.05.15: Improved the body wave computation and added computations for surface wave and mbLg surface wave magnitude.
• 2006.05.07: Bug in new filtering routines found by fixed by Roger Sparks. Was causing crashes but seem to affect only systems running Windows 98.
• 2006.05.02: Fixed bug noticed by John Lahr that made filtering of small signals in the present hour almost disappear.
• 2006.04.29: John Lahr pointed out that many of the Select menu items were grayed out. Fixed. Also added more documentation, particularly about the Event Dialog screen.
• 2006.04.28: Add icon and menu selection item for returning to present time on Helicorder screens. This is handy when going back in time to see an event and then wanting to return quickly to the current time.
• 2006.04.27: Added improved filtering, both in the Helicorder and Event screens. The long period filtering was provided by Bob McClure. The low pass and high pass filters are Butterworth second order filters.
• 2005.11.01: Made a change suggested by Roger Sparks that MIGHT prevent spikes. I don't see these spikes on my setup so I am depending on reports from others.
• 2005.07.30: Fixed a bug reported by Michael Hebert. He reported that data from the first partial hour were not being saved when using a DATAQ device. Notecaused no problems when using an AS-1. This bug was introduced when the "glitch removal" capability was added.: This bug
• 2005.05.19: After a lot of work with John Lahr on trying to find out the source of glitches in the signals received, it has been determined that the cause is a computer with too little resources in terms of speed and/or memory. John did testing with a 300 MHz, 64 MB system with Windows 98 SE. It generated lots of glitches. This gave us the ability to make changes to AmaSeis to remove these glitches. You can turn this glitch-control on and off from the Helicorder screen dialog box.

  Also, added "Recently used seismogram files" to the Files menu item so that you can easily select a previous file. This only works for SAC files.

• 2005.03.29: Add capability to control the scaling of a seismogram.
• 2005.01.30: Tom Owen pointed out that the origin time in SAC files produced by AmaSeis had the wrong sign. Fixed.
• 2005.01.17: Fixed problem that was causing crashes for a few users at hour transitions.
• 2005.01.02: Roger Sparks found out to fix problem of the "Printer Setup" not working.
• 2004.11.29: Fixed problem that would not allow you to get to the helicorder screen if you had a non-existent COM port assigned. Fixed a problem with setting the sample rate with the DATAQ devices. Thanks to Ed Ianni for pointing out this problem and his williness to test versions to verify the fix. Make a change so that on devices other than the DATAQ devices, that the sample rate is determined for each hour rather than based on the current sample rate. This solves the problem of previous hours' traces not filling the screen until the first full hour was past.
• 2004.11.20: Fixed a problem with the time displayed in the small time window of the Event screen. Time was off by the amount of the origin time.
• 2004.11.17: Fixed a few bugs found by John Lahr: (1) Filter parameters were not being displayed on Event screen, (2) the great-circle arc on that same screen was computed using the local station coordinates instead of the coordinates of the station which produced the seismogram and (3) after changing parameters in the Event dialog, the screen was not being refreshed to reflect the change.
• 2004.11.16: Fixed a bug found by Larry Braile which caused phase picks to mark in the wrong place.
• 2004.11.15: Roger Sparks noticed that you could not put a decimal number, e.g. "0.4" in the cutoff frequency on the Helicorder dialog box. Fixed.
• 2004.11.11: Have added a feature to allow you to move an extracted seismogram to the Seismic Waves program. In Seismic Waves you can see how the earthquake sends out seismic waves through the earth and over the surface of the earth. Also, it marks the seismogram at the arrival of the P, PP, S, and SS waves and produces a sound by speeding up the seismogram by a factor of 16,000.
• 2004.11.08: When a new event is extracted, it is given the name "untitled." When you save, it used to get saved with the file name "untitled." Now, the "Save File As" dialog box appears allowing you to save under a name of your choice.
• 2004.11.05: Improve filtering in Event screen. Use frequency domain filtering in place of time-domain.
• 2004.11.01: Fix a bug in the band-pass filtering detected by Larry Braile. Also, provide more resolution in the time window of the Event screen to help in determining the period of a P-wave.
• 2004.10.29: Add mb magnitude computation to Controls on Event screen.
• 2004.10.26: Move Sample rate line to bottom of helicorder screen where it is not overwritten by traces.
• 2004.10.25: Implement Help button on Calibration Parameters dialog box and other small improvements.
• 2004.10.23: Add capability of computing AS-1 instrument response. Fix bug that produces a blank rectangle on screen when you write a bitmap.
• 2004.09.20: Add filter cut-off frequency to information on the helicorder screen. Fixed a bug that can cause AmaSeis to crash when you exit from an event that was loaded from a file. Also, fixed problem that can keep the "unfilter" funtion from working.
• 2004.07.14: Added Fourier transform capability. When on the Event screen, you can click on the "Fourier Transform" icon. The Fourier Transform screen has the capability to view the amplitude vs frequency (Hz) or amplitude vs period (s). If you want to Fourier transform just a portion of the trace, mark that portion and click on the "Extract" icon. Then Fourier transform. Improved scale labels and tic marks on the horizontal axis of the Event screen. It used to only indicate to the minute thus leaving no labels at all of the trace was well under a minute. Now the marks can go down to the second. Also improved the precision of the display of amplitude and time in the windows of the Event screen.
• 2004.06.26: There are now two Station dialog boxes on the Event screen. One is to view and/or change the station parameters for the station using AmaSeis and the other is to view and/or change the station parameters for the seismogram being viewed. Added caption on helicorder screen and Event screen which gives the Station Code, Station Name, Station Latitude/Longitude so that when screen captures are shared others can see where the display originated. When event information is added to a waveform, the great-circle arc distance is calculated and entered into the SAC file for use by other applications. This was not being done before. A control on the Event screen allows the user to create a *.evt file for use in Seismic Waves.