Link to USGS home page.
USGS HOME
Contact USGS

Facebook Icon Twitter Icon
  • Assess
  • Prepare
  • Forecast
  • |
  • Activity
  • Products
  • Observatories
  • About

Software

Swarm - Brainstorm

Contents: Swarm | Download | Documentation | Vision Statement

This is a list of ideas, suggestions and improvements for future versions of Swarm. Please submit more ideas and suggestions as you see fit to Peter Cervelli (pcervelli@usgs.gov).

Monitor windows

  • Monitor windows can contain waves from any source (not only within the same server)
  • Vertical mode: waves flow vertically rather than horizontally. Useful for modern generation widescreen displays
  • Selectable flow direction: left->right/right->left (horizontal mode) up->down/down->up (vertical mode)
  • Can create new empty windows
  • Waves can be added to any open [numbered] monitor window
  • [All views] Show at cursor precise time in yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.000
  • [Wave view] Show at cursor wave amplitude in counts and/or real units
  • [Spectrogram view] Show at cursor signal power and frequency
  • Toggable fixed maximum amplitude/power to be shown (already implemented, to be expanded)
  • [Spectrogram view] Selectable different spectrogram color scales
  • Deletable calibration signals (useful especially for AVO stations)
  • Resizable individually/change display proportions of each wave (example - Wave1: 10% screen height, Wave2: 20% height, Wave3: auto-resize)
  • Selectable fixed wave display size. If exceeding the monitor window size, show a scroll bar
  • [Audio mode] play as audio displayed waves.
  • [Audio mode] arrange left/right audio channel proportions according to the relative distance of nearby stations
  • [Audio mode] and play selection as audio
  • [Interface] let users relocate a wave up/down (or left/right in vertical mode) in the monitor window
  • [Interface] drag-n-droppable waves in and out of the monitor window. Drag-drop between different monitor windows possible.
  • [Interface] interactive on-display band pass filter by dragging symbols
  • Select range from displayed wave->copy wave to clipboard
  • Mask unselected range in grayscale
  • Optionally show various info for the selected range (start time, end time, length, average power/amplitude, etc)
  • Optionally show pop-up spectra info for the selected range
  • Optionally show both waveforms and spectrograms as in AVO Iceweb spectrograms.
  • Two sources (or the same/ heli-spectrogram) on the same row or column (in vertical mode)
  • Show complete time bar instead of only start and end time at the bottom of the screen
  • Hidable time bar
  • Show vertical line at cursor x location (horizontal line at y in vertical mode) on each wave and time bar. Lighter color for unselected waves
  • Hold-button for showing temporarily in the whole monitor window a helicorder view for the selected wave
  • Multiple wave selection for mass tweaking of displaying options where applicable
  • Click station name/channel/network box to display metadata and pole/zeroes info (?)
  • Show configurable (and optionally moving?) vertical time grid
  • Quick configuration reset button/option
  • Placemark/Placemark list for later analysis?
  • Larger timeline than 60 minutes

Layouts

  • Complete layouts ("snapshots"/"monitoring projects") and partial (example: monitor window configurations) ones.
  • Multi-window mode (not single window, multiple document) to enhance multi-monitor support
  • Switchable individual windows to/from MDI mode?
  • [Kiosk mode] User interface for kiosk mode configuration
  • [Kiosk mode] make manually (or automatically) resizable rows/columns
  • [Kiosk mode] views can span multiple rows and/or columns (example: 1x2, 2x3, 2x1, etc)
  • [Kiosk mode] quick switch between different monitor views (with a button?)
  • [Kiosk mode] timer-based automatic view switching
  • All floating windows: hidable title bar and toolbar

Map

General performance improvements

  • Update data, but don't redraw when minimized. Both globally and for individual monitor windows
  • Keep cache of station lists and station metadata
  • When using fixed spectrogram scale, don't calculate everything, but keep bitmap snapshots of older data
  • Preference class instead of Properties; + XML configuration files

New functionalities / Misc. improvements

  • Incoming wave data from any source to local database (Winston integration?)
  • [Utility] Time range from any server to file/database (replacing VASE from IRIS and waveman2disk from the Earthworm distribution)
  • Waves to WAV
  • Soundcard to Waves
  • Waves and Helicorders to PDF
  • RSAM and SSAM (example: http://www.geonet.org.nz/images/volcano/monitoring/dome_rsam_ssam.gif)
  • Reduced displacement?
  • Batch waveform download facility from list (like VASE?) or file
  • Spectra to CSV
  • Web Java applet version
  • Better resolution on helicorders
  • Tray icon in taskbar for added control
  • Determine minimum amount of memory for opened waves
  • Spectrogram-helicorders (sgram)
  • Automatic type identification of seismic signals
  • Open helicorders/monitor in radius (click point map, select radius, open monitors/helis)

General UI / Presentation / Definitions

  • Start screen with USGS VHP links and Latest U.S. Volcano Alerts and Updates? Integration with USGS web site?
  • Start with browsable IRIS DMC data sources (like on GEE?). Cache data to avoid straining IRIS servers and long waiting times (as happening on GEE)
  • [Simplify] Real-Time Waves->DELETE; Monitor->General Purpose Real Time Wave Container (GPRTWC containing 1 wave = old "Real Time Wave" window)
  • [Definition] Real Time Wave Container: container for aligned waves updating in realtime and sharing time scale info
  • [Definition] Clipboard: container for fixed heterogeneous snapshot waves
  • Custom key configuration screen?

List of related programs that could be good source for ideas and improvements

Miscellaneous resource links for further ideas, reference and programming