x_system (1) - Linux Manuals
x_system: A Cross-Over Error Analysis Tool
NAME
x_system - A Cross-Over Error Analysis ToolINTRODUCTION
gravity, magnetics, or bathymetry. It has long been recognized that although the data quality along track may be quite good, one usually finds discrepancies at the points where two tracks intersect. These cross-over errors (COE) can be large enough to cause artificial features in the final gridded dataset, which would render geological interpretations of such a map questionable. Also, notoriously bad cruises will generate high COEs along their tracks, and should ideally be removed from the data base before gridding is attempted. The reasons why COEs arise are many and will not be dealt with here. Although originally intended to be used for marine gravity data only, x_system has been designed to handle magnetics and bathymetry as well. (For an overview of gravity COEs, see Wessel and Watts [1988]). In most cases, marine gravity COEs can be explained by a simple model having only 2 parameters. These are a d.c.-shift and a drift-rate that apply for the duration of the cruise. The goal of the COE analysis is thus to determine the dc-shifts and drift-rates for each leg that will minimize the COEs in a least squares sense, and at the same time flag cruises that exhibit unreasonably high COEs (even after correction for d.c.-shift/drift). Furthermore, we can also assign a 'quality index' for each cruise by looking at the standard deviation of the COEs. The d.c.-shift/drift rate model may not be as meaningful for magnetics and bathymetry as it is for gravity. However, looking for high COEs is still one of the best ways of identifying systematic errors in the magnetic/bathymetric data sets.
x_system PHILOSOPHY
COEs generated at intersections with other cruises, there is no such thing as a 'final correction' as long as we keep on adding data to the data base. This means that the system must be able to incorporate new data and compute a new set of d.c.-shifts/drift-rates that takes the new COEs into account. x_system is made modular so that one program computes the actual COEs, one program archives the COE information, and the remaining programs do various tasks like reporting statistics (to flag bad cruises), extracting a subset of the COE database, and solving for the best fitting d.c.-shift/drift corrections. This way only the new COEs generated need to be computed and added to the database before a new correction solution is sought.
programming language and are intended to be run on a UNIX machine. Thus, it is assumed that the user has access to UNIX tools like awk, grep, and sort, and that the operating system provides a means for redirecting input/output. Likewise, it is assumed that all the geophysical data are stored in the GMT-format as outlined in the GMT MGG supplements man pages, and that the 1 by 1 degree bin information files (gmtindex.b and gmtlegs.b) have been created and are being maintained by the database librarian.
HOW TO DO IT
point out usage, useful tricks, and pitfalls. (A more complete description of what exactly each program does can be found in the man pages for each program). We will assume that we initially have N cruises in our GMT data bank, and that we just have received the x_system package. The first thing to do is to run x_init which will create an empty data base system. This will normally be done only once. With N cruises on our hands we will in the worst case have to compare the N*(N+1)/2 possible pairs. This is where x_setup comes in handy. It will read the 1 by 1 degree bin information files and print out a list of pairs that need to be checked. The two cruises that make up a pair will at least once occupy the same 1 by 1 degree bin, and may thus intersect. Those combinations which do not have any bins in common obviously don't have to be checked. Let's call this list of pairs xpairs.lis.
the COEs For details on algorithm, see Wessel [1989]. It takes two cruise names as arguments and writes out all the COEs generated between them (if any). Since xpairs.lis may contain quite a few pairs, the most efficient way of running x_over is to create an executable command (batch) file that starts x_over for each pair. Using awk to do this, we would say:
and relax while xjob is crunching the numbers. This is the time-consuming part of the COE
analysis, and on a SUN-3 computer with Floating Point Accelerator installed we average about
10,000 pairs of cruises/day. It may pay off to split a huge xjob file into smaller parts, and call the
output files xjob.d1, xjob.d2 etc. Most of the run-time is taken up by reading the GMT files;
when in memory the actual computations are remarkably fast. The output file xjob.d will now
have all the COE information in ASCII form. For each pair of legs there will be a header record
stating the names of the cruises and their starting years. The following records up to the next
header record (or End-Of-File) will contain lat, lon, time, value, etc. for each COE found. This is
a temporary file, but it is wise to back it up to tape just in case.
ASCII files. This is done by x_update which rearranges the data and updates the binary data
base system. After this step the xjob.d files can be deleted (presuming they have been backed up
to tape). At this stage we have several options available. We can list some of the COEs by running
x_list, which will extract COEs that match the options we pass, e.g. we might ask for all the
internal COEs for cruise c2104, and only print out time and gravity COE. See the man pages for more
details. x_report can be run, and will output statistics for separate cruises, i.e. mean and
standard deviation of the COEs for different data sets (gravity/magnetics/bathymetry). To solve
for the best fitting corrections we would run x_solve_dc_drift. This program will
solve for the d.c.-shift/drift-rates for all cruises, update that information in the data base system,
and create correction tables (ASCII and/or binary). We have now completed the COE analysis for
our initial GMT data bank.
the same recipe and go back and run x_setup, but this time we will use the -L option so that only the
pairs involving new cruises are returned. Then we would run the remaining programs exactly as
described above.
AUTHOR
Paul Wessel, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Wessel, P. XOVER: A Cross-over Error Detector for Track Data, Computers & Geosciences, 15, 333-346.
Wessel, P. and A. B. Watts, On the Accuracy of Marine Gravity Measurements,
J. Geophys. Res., 93, 393-413, 1988.