Typical workflow

This section walks through a typical session: finding the events in a set of automatic picks, locating and checking them, and sending the results back to SeisComP. Each step links to the detailed description.

Load the data

  1. Select the processing profile for the network in the toolbar. It is applied at start-up; press Load next to it if you change it.

  2. Set the time window in the database part of the toolbar, tick picks and, if the existing solutions should be included, origins or pref. origins, and press Load.

    Alternatively open an XML file with File → Open….

  3. If the picks contain duplicates, press Aggregate (Pick aggregation and filtering), or tick aggregate before loading.

Check the picks in the histogram and on the map. Hide noise with the pick filters, for example with Not isolated or the infrasound trace-velocity filter (Pick filters).

Find the events

  1. Choose a nucleation method on the Nucleation tab and press Nucleate (Nucleation). Each detection is added as a preliminary origin.

  2. If the result is poor, tune the parameters with Auto vel., Auto dist. and Auto from a few trusted origins, and nucleate again.

Locate the events

  1. Clear the selection and press Smart-locate all. Every visible origin is associated, relocated and, if successful, accepted (Analyst rules and Smart-locate).

  2. Press Merge origins to combine duplicate detections of the same event (Refining origins).

  3. Repeat Nucleate and Smart-locate all: picks that are now associated are no longer used for nucleation, so weaker events can appear.

  4. During swarms, recover further events on the Swarm tab and locate them with Smart-locate all (Swarm tab: recovering further events).

Review single origins

Select an origin to inspect it in the ACTIVE ORIGIN panel. The Travel-time plot shows at a glance whether the picks follow the curves (Analyst rules and Smart-locate). To improve an origin by hand:

  • box-select unassociated picks on the plot to associate them,

  • click arrivals to stop using them,

  • press Relocate and, if the candidate is better, Accept origin,

  • or press Smart-locate and review the candidate.

Reset returns to the first stored solution. Review in scolv opens the origin in scolv for a full review with waveforms.

Check the quality

  1. Select a QC rule set on the QC tab, or build the conditions (Quality control).

  2. Press Select matching or Star matching to review the matching origins.

  3. Press Confirm matching, Reject matching or Remove matching to apply the decision.

Use the origin filter to apply a rule set to a part of the catalogue only.

Send or save the results

File → Send Selection to Messaging sends the origins that were merged, relocated or accepted since loading or since the last send. Only these updated origins are sent; origins that did not change are skipped.

  • The origins are sent as new objects. The picks they refer to already exist in SeisComP and are not sent again.

  • Arrivals that refer to virtual picks are removed before sending, because virtual picks exist only in catalyst.

  • The confirmation dialog shows the number of origins and the messaging group. Sending cannot be undone from catalyst.

catalyst must be started with a messaging connection (-H) to send.

To keep the results as a file instead, use File → Save As… or Save Selection As….

Save the settings that worked with Save as… next to the profile selector, so the next session starts from them (Processing profiles).