GCF2ASC 1.7
GCF2ASC is a command-line utility for converting GCF data to files in a user-specified layout in ASCII. Flexible command-line parameters allow the user to control the layout of the header and data sections of the ASCII file.
Download
GCF2ASC v1.7 for Windows (84 K .zip)
This windows binary uses the QT runtime DLL file qtintf70.dll. This is normally installed with Scream but, if it is not installed on your system, you will receive an error message when you try to run this software. You can download this DLL from here. It should be placed either in the same directory as the program or in the system32 directory.or
GCF2ASC v1.7 for Linux (97 K .gz)
This linux binary needs access to the Qt runtime library (a 2.4 M .gz), either in your normal library path or in the current directory. If the library cannot be loaded, the following error is displayed:
Runtime error 230 at 080677E9 Segmentation fault (core dumped)This 32-bit linux software runs on 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. To install it on a 64-bit Linux platform, please follow these instructions to install the relevant libraries.
Usage
To get a list of the options, run the gcf2asc program without any parameters. The following text is displayed:
The simplest way to use the program is just to specify one parameter: a GCF file name. The default layout options will be used, and an ASCII file will be generated with one line of header, and one sample per line of data:
You can also use wildcards in the file-name, so gcf2asc *.gcf will convert every gcf file in the current directory. The name of the converted file will be the same as the gcf file name, with the extension changed to .txt.
The header line is generated using the file format IIIIII TTTTTT YYYY MM DD HH NN SS PPP. GCF2ASC interprets this line, replacing the special codes for the actual values of the source GCF file. For example, YYYY is replaced with a four-digit number representing the year of the start of the data in the GCF file. See below for a full list of codes.
If you wish to suppress all headers, and simply have a file containing the raw samples, use the /NoHdr command-line option. This option is not advisable, as it loses important information about the data, such as time, sample rate, source name (system from which it came) etc.
You can use the /lineX="" option to specify the header information you need (where X specifies the line number within the header). Note that you can have as many of these parameters as necessary, allowing multiple line headers to be constructed. Upper case letters are converted using the codes below; lower case letters and numbers are left exactly as they are. So, using the following command (note the double-quote marks (") around each line):
generates an output like:
Notice that because line 5 was specified, empty lines are inserted for lines and 4, even though they were not listed. Note also that the parameter /line6="" was used to insert a blank line between the header and data sections.
If you need to insert a literal character without it being interpreted, use the \ escape character. For example,
might generate the text 2003 Years. Note that the
\ is only ‘escaping’ the Y, not the ‘ears’. These characters do
not need escaping, as lower case characters are copied literally anyway. To
get the output NONE, you should use
\N\O\N\E (the ‘O’ does not need escaping but it causes no problems
to do so).
The command-line option /uff loads a specific
set of /LineX= lines, which are suitable for producing
a header layout in UFF dataset 58
format. This default uses a ‘minimum’ set of header entries. The user can
override the lines using /LineX= lines. An example of
where this could be useful is to add a detailed description to lines 4, 6 and 7
(or records 2, 4 and 5 of the UFF dataset 58 header).
This option also defaults the spl value (Samples
Per Line – see below) to 6. The user can
override this value using the /spl= option.
In the same way, the command-line option /csmip loads a set of header lines which are suitable for generating output files conforming to the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program "CSMIP" standard. These can also be over-ridden if desired.
To control the layout of the samples, you can use the /spl= and /fw= parameters.
/spl= sets the Samples Per Line. The default (as shown in the example above) is 1 (/spl=1). The following output sample was generated using the same command line as previous example, but adding the /spl=5 parameter.Note that to prevent any new-line characters being inserted (all samples on one line), use the /spl=0 parameter.
/fw= sets the Field Width. That is, the number of characters used for each sample. The default is 12 (that is, one space and eleven for the number). If the number is negative, this is included, leaving ten digits for the number.
- If the digitising source is a 16 bit digitiser, then the numbers are going to be in the range -32,768 to 32,767, which means 5 digits for the number, 1 for the -ve sign, 1 for the space, so a value of /fw=7 is sufficient.
- A 24-bit digitiser can generate numbers in the range -8,388,608 to 8,388,607, so the minimum width should be 9 (7 digits, +1 for the -ve sign, +1 for the space).
- 32-bit numbers can be in the range -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647, which needs 12 (10 digits +2 as above). This is default setting.
If a width is specified that is too small for the values in the data, the entire value is printed anyway, including a space between the values (as they become difficult to read otherwise), and the rest of the line is shifted. An example is shown below, where the parameters /fw=4 /spl=5 are used (the default header is used):
Wildcard Substitution
A versatile formatting system allows the user to incorporate data extracted from the GCF file into header lines in the output file. Every time one of the upper-case characters listed below appears in a /linen= argument, it is replaced by data from the input file. The characters used are the same as those used for generating file-names in Scream!’s recording facility, with some additional characters specific to this program.
The following format specifiers are supported:
| Specifier | Replaced with |
| YY | year as a two digit number (e.g. 98 for 1998). |
| YYYY | year as a four digit number (e.g. 1998). |
| M | month as a number without a leading zero (e.g. 1-12) |
| MM | month as a number padded to two digits (e.g. 01-12) |
| MMM | month as a short name (e.g. Jan) in the language configured for your system |
| D | date as a number without a leading zero (e.g. 1-31) |
| DD | date as a number padded to two digits (e.g. 01-31) |
| H | hour without a leading zero (e.g. 0-23) |
| HH | hour padded to two digits (e.g. 00-23) |
| N | minute without a leading zero (e.g. 0-59) |
| NN | minute padded to two digits (e.g. 00-59) |
| S | second without a leading zero (e.g. 0-59) |
| SS | second padded to two digits (e.g. 00-59) |
| R | day of year without leading zeros (e.g. 0-365) |
| RRR | day of year padded to three digits (e.g. 000-365) |
| X | Date code represented as an 8 digit hexadecimal number. Allows complete date to fit in a DOS 8.3 format. |
| I | system ID, without leading underscores (e.g. TEST) |
| IIIIII | system ID, padded to six characters (e.g. __TEST) |
| T | stream ID, without leading underscores (e.g. DMZ2) |
| TTTTTT | stream ID padded to six characters (e.g. __DMZ2) |
| E | serial number, without leading underscores. This is the stream ID without the last two digits. |
| EEEE | serial number as above, padded to four characters (e.g. _456) |
| A | The mapped Stream ID. If no mapping is defined for the stream, it is the same as T. |
| C | component identifier (Z,N,E,M, etc). |
| P | samples per second without leading zeros (e.g. 4-200) |
| PPP | samples per second padded to three digits (e.g. 004-200) |
| |NUMSMPLS| | † the number of samples in the file, right-justified and padded to ten characters with spaces (e.g. “ 1000″) |
| |SMPL--PER| | † the sample period, in seconds, expressed as an eleven-character floating point number in “scientific notation” (e.g. 1.0000E-003 for one millisecond) |
| |COMPNUM| | † the component number (i.e. 1=Vertical, 2=North/South and 3=East/West) in a nine-character field |
| |SMP| | ‡ the number of samples in the file, right-justified and padded to five characters with spaces (e.g. “ 1000″) |
| |SMPS| | ‡ the number of samples in the file, right-justified and padded to six characters with spaces (e.g. “ 1000″) |
| |#SECS| | ‡ the file duration, in seconds, with two decimal places, right-justified and padded to seven characters with spaces (e.g. “ 2.50″) |
| |NUM-SECS| | ‡ the file duration, in seconds, with three decimal places, right-justified and padded to ten characters with spaces (e.g. “ 2.500″) |
| |SMPL-PER| | ‡ the sample period, in seconds, expressed as a fixed-point number with three decimal places, right-justified and padded to ten characters with spaces (e.g. “ 0.001″ for one millisecond) |
Items marked † are not standard Scream formatting codes and have been introduced to support standard UFF headers. Items marked ‡ are not standard Scream formatting codes and have been introduced to support standard CSMIP headers.
The format string is case sensitive, so HH will be replaced with the hour, but hh will remain as a literal. This facility can be used to add constant descriptions or field separators as desired.
The following characters cannot be used due to operating system limitations:
: * ? " < > |
Examples of format strings and their results:
| T_YYYY_MM_DD;HHhNNmSSs | dmz2_1997_10_05;07h35m20s |
| T.YYYY.RRR_HHNNSS | dmz2.1997.278_073520 |
| T.YYYY.M.D;H.N.S;C;P | dmz2.1997.10.5;7.35.20;z;100 |
The /gm argument: Ground motion units
The /gm argument causes the input time-series data to be converted into "ground motion units" where possible. "Ground motion units" means, in this context, physical units of velocity or acceleration rather than raw digitiser "counts". This process relies on the presence of a calvals.txt file containing an entry for the stream being converted. Please consult the Scream manual for more information about this file.
If either of the pre-defined layout arguments, /uff or /csmip, are specified as well as /gm, the resulting units will be specified in the header of the output file in accordance with the relevant specification. In all other cases, specifying /gm causes the input samples to be multiplied by the constant value
Digitiser_Sensitivity ÷ Instrument_Sensitivity
where:
- Digitiser_Sensitivity is the relevant value from the VPC= line in calvals.txt; and
- Instrument_Sensitivity is the relevant value from the G= line in calvals.txt.
Because VPC= is specified in units of µV/count, and G is specified either in units of V/ms1 for velocimeters (seismometers) or V/ms-2 for accelerometers, the output values will be in units of either µm/s for velocity instruments or µm/s2 for acceleration instruments.
Known Issues
GCF2ASC version 1.5, which is part of the Scream distribution, contains a bug which could cause malformed output. The header incorrectly reported zero values for the number of samples and the file duration while a second, correct but incomplete header would appear at the end of the file. This is fixed in version 1.6, which also introduced the /gm option. Version 1.7 introduces support for 800sps data and all users are advised to upgrade.
For more information, first contact your local distributor or email .