Data Services Newsletter

Volume 6 : No 1 : January 2004

Portable Data Collection Centers is well received

For the past year, IRIS DMC has been developing a new version of the Portable Data Collection Centers (PDCC) software to provide users an easy tool for managing seismic metadata. A beta version was released in December just as IRIS DMC hosted its second-ever PDCC Workshop.

Photo of the second PDCC workshop
Figure 1: Photo from the second IRIS DMC PDCC workshop

Seismologists and programmers completing the 4 days of instruction at the December, 2003 PDCC Workshop had many positive comments regarding the PDCC software. During the course, users learned to install the software, manage a MySQL database, and begin building dataless SEED volumes. The key to this class was that users left feeling that they were enabled to produce a data product that defined their network’s stations. Based on the volumes of feedback from the attendees, this goal was attained and the software was greeted with great enthusiasm. Also, the classroom provided a forum for discussing problem areas and desired features. Well over 60 feature items were identified during the course, which made the workshop a very productive one, and will result in a much better software product going into 2004.

Portable Data Collection Centers software is a pure-Java application with the primary purpose of allowing network operators to manage station metadata, instrument response information, and produce dataless SEED volumes that can be processed here at IRIS DMC. With many networks providing a constant stream of seismic waveform data to IRIS DMC in the form of miniSEED (headerless) digital records, the need for managing up-to-date station metadata is ever present and ongoing.

PDCC v3.0 is currently under development and will go from a beta release to a full gold release sometime in the first half of this year. The project has long-term aims to provide a wide range of features beyond metadata management, such as waveform processing and archiving, writing data files, NetDC request processing, RESP file processing, and Data Handling Interface connectivity, among others. Another PDCC Workshop is scheduled for sometime this summer.

Although not officially released, users are welcome to download PDCC code by contacting Rob Casey for instructions on how to do so.

by Rob Casey (IRIS Data Management Center)

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