DrumPlot is a display and printing utility which presents seismic data as a page per 24 hours. The data is drawn in 24 rows of one hour each.
Real-time data plotted with DrumPlot can be viewed on this site.
Drumplot receives the data by listening on a network port, and creating a 24 hour buffer for each stream received. In this way, it can be an 'addon' for Scream!, offering an alternative output type.
Two output options are available: page print or PNG image
generation.
As many streams as desired can be selected independently for
printing or image generation. A printout of is automatically
generated at midnight UTC, and the PNG images are generated at
00:00 and 12:00 UTC (changeable - see below). An optional post-processor allows
user-controlled handling of the generated PNG images (e.g. FTP to
a web server).
The program is self contained, and stand alone. It does not
need any explicit installation, and can be run as is.
A number of operational parameters are set by means of command
line options. An ideal place to specify these parameters is in
the properties of a shortcut to drumplot. For example, to
auto-run drumplot at startup (or login), place a shortcut to the drumplot.exe
file in the startup folder of the start menu. Then edit the
properties of this shortcut to specify any needed parameters.
Once running, the program will pick up any streams on the chosen port. A buffer file will be created, and the data placed in the buffer. The filename is listed in the left side of the window (the filelist).
The network port that DrumPlot listens on is selected in the following priority order:
Drumplot can also 'pull' data from one or more
Scream! servers. To set up a data
pull, simply add a parameter to the command-line for each server,
in the form /s:a.a.a.a:p, where a.a.a.a
is the IP address of the Scream server PC, and p
is the port number that the Scream server is listening on. For
example, to request data from server 192.168.12.34, port 1567,
you might use the command line "drumplot 1567
/s:192.168.12.34:1567"
This 'pull' type of data reception is not necessary if drumplot
can receive the data by some other means (for example, by Scream
broadcast).
The "File" Menu options are:
By default, the display will refresh every minute with the currently selected file. A red vertical marker indicates the current time (last data received). Any gaps in the data are shown as blank spaces. To change the 1 minute default, use the command line option /redraw:n where n is the redraw rate in seconds. A value of 0 will cause drumplot to refresh the display every time a new block is received.
To enable a stream for automatic printout at midnight, click the 'print' icon to the left of the stream-name. Any number of streams may be selected for printing. A laser printer is recommended to achieve best resolution and performance.
To enable a stream for automatic PNG image generation, click the 'PNG' icon to the left of the stream-name. Any number of streams may be selected for PNG generation. If a post-processor has been installed (see below) then it will be called when the PNG file is created. The size of the images created are independent of the size of the window, and can be controlled with command-line parameters -IMGX:x and -IMGY:y, where x and y are the width and height of the generated image, in pixels. For example, to generate PNG images that are 640x480, use the command line "drumplot -imgX:640 -imgY:480". By default, an image will be generated every 12 hours. To change this, use the command line option /genpng:n, where n is the interval between image generation in minutes. The valid range is from 10 minutes to 24 hours (1440 minutes).
A filter option is available for streams sampled at 1sps. This
filter is fixed to a bandpass, with passband 10 to 30 seconds.
To switch the filter on and off, click on the filter icon to the
left of the stream-name. Note that this icon is only available
for 1sps streams.
The scale is automatically selected to adjust to the signal
level, such that most of the data is within the constraints of
the strip. To prevent short periods of large signal from forcing
the rest of the data to a flat line, a small percentage of
'overrange' data is allowed.
The amplitude scale is in counts, and represents the space
between the traces (ie 1/24 the height of the drawing area).
The status bar below the filelist displays the samplerate and filesize of the currently selected filename.
If there is insufficient disk space for the 24 hour buffer, the stream-name will be displayed in gray, and the output features will be disabled. To re-enable, first free up sufficient disk space, then delete the stream entry. A new buffer will be created when the next data is received for that stream.
When run, drumplot creates buffer files in the default directory (usually the directory the program is in). Therefore there should be enough disk space for all necessary buffering. As a guideline, each 4sps stream will require 1.32Mb. A 100sps stream would require approximately 33MB. Therefore a typical three component instrument with 3x100sps and 3x4sps would require a total of 103Mb.
To use the post-processor option for PNG images, a file called 'FTPfile' should be placed in the same directory as DrumPlot. DrumPlot calls this program each time it generates a PNG image, passing the PNG filename as a parameter.
A sample program to do this can be downloaded here. Fill in the blanks in the ftpfile.ini to specify the FTP options. Both files should be placed in the same directory as Drumplot.