Geometrics Forum - Recent Posts

Inconsistent arrival times

Randl Rivera — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:41:47 +0000

A customer reached out to support about inconsistent arrival times on stacks using his ES-3000. After stepping through the set up, he sent the .dat files for us to look into. It was mentioned that the seismograph itself is not capable of randomly triggering early and that there was something external to the instrument causing this 100-200mS early trigger event to occur. Another puzzling factor was that it occurred randomly after a number of shots in auto-stack mode (10).

It took some investigating and convincing, but what was finally concluded that the sledgehammer in use had some "flex" in the handle that would cause a "pre-trigger" on the downswing. Once the hammer was replaced the pre-triggers ceased.

Thanks again for the time on the phone today. I really appreciate the guidance and experience of your team.

After the discussion with your team, this led me to do a few more tests on the equipment. This evening, I got 40 stacks with no inconsistency in arrival times.

To close the loop on what I think was going on: I believe the hammer itself may have been the issue, husky hammers have a shock absorber and a sloped handle. Having the trigger strapped in a particular way on the hammer may have been the cause here. See image below:

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I used a new hammer (NOT HUSKY) and did not experience the inconsistent arrival times. I will continue to monitor the issue. I appreciate the support from your team! I've individually swapped out all other components (aside from the geode) - this is the only change that seems to have solved the issue.

In summary: My theory is either the shock absorber, or sloped handle caused the trigger to delay, resulting in early arrival times.

RE: Geometrics preliminary MagArrow and MagEx data processing program download

Benjamin Johnson — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 01:23:21 +0000

@rzhang Thank very much for the immediate response. Legend!.

All workign again.

RE: Geometrics preliminary MagArrow and MagEx data processing program download

Rui Zhang — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 01:18:23 +0000

@benjamin-johnson I uploaded a new config file. Please try it again.

RE: Geometrics preliminary MagArrow and MagEx data processing program download

Benjamin Johnson — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 01:06:19 +0000

Hey there, Ive been using this tool with no issues for a few weeks, but not get the "trial period expired" error. Ive redownloaded the config file and placed it in the directory as suggested here but have had no success. Is there a new licence for this?

How to use SeisImager 2D seismic profiles to be used in real world models

Randl Rivera — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:32:24 +0000

Q. We are now often being asked to provide our 2D seismic profiles to be used in real world models. When the inversion is done it has distance along line and depth/elevation as the output. Is there a way to add real world Northing/Easting coordinates into the data file so it can be more simply reference to the real world location the data was collected?

A. Thank you very much for using SeisImager.
So you want to add coordinate to 2D Vp or Vs cross sections.
You can use GeoPlot to add the coordinates either lat-lon or UTM.
GeoPlot can import cross sections from PlotRefa (.vs) and WaveEq (.pvs).
Use "Edit", "XY coordinates (latitude-longitude)" to add the coordinates.
See GeoPlot manual for more details.

https://seisimager.com/download/Geoplot_Manual_v2.0_ENGLISH.pdf

If you have several cross-sections, you may use GeoPlot3D to interpolate 2D cross sections to a 3D volume.

RE: Using UART4 to stream data to a Rpi4

Ana Teresa Falcão — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:33:52 +0000

@easswar Hello,

Thank you for you answer, I think it will really help me sort out the communication. When you mention the softwares available for this sync, do you recommend any one in particular?

Also, I have been trying another option which is to use the ethernet port to transfer the data to the Raspberry Pi 4 (to its ethernet port as well), but I don't seem to receive any signal of any kind. Do you know if that's also already been tested?

Again, Thank you.
Best<

RE: Using UART4 to stream data to a Rpi4

Easswar Balasubramaniam — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:57:24 +0000

Hey

There is no hardware limitation to use UART4 or UART5 for your application. The previous post you read was talking about UART not being implemented in the example code and not specifically about UART5.

The existing pipeline does assume a single consumer and you will run into race conditions if you only implement a mailbox_pend for your UART transmission. I would recommend that you either remove the TCP mailbox or create a new mailbox for UART.

We have tried UART streaming before without issue.

Transmitting the raw binary data will cause issues with some receiver implementations as the values 0x00(NULL char in ASCII), 0x0A or 0x0D which usually denote the end of a serial transmission occur regularly in the MFAM data.

Two options to avoid this issue:
1. Convert the fields you are interested in to ASCII before sending them over UART.
2. Send a fixed number of bytes and implement binary mode on your receiver and request the same number of bytes.

One other issue to watch out for in binary mode is if the receiver starts receiving data in the middle of a transmission the transmitter and receiver will be out of sync. There are two handshake signal lines available on the UART4 port on the DevKit called RTS and CTS(Request to Send and Clear to Send). You can use these lines to synchronize the transmitter and receiver. There are software options available as well to implement this synchronization.

Hope this helps.

Using UART4 to stream data to a Rpi4

Ana Teresa Falcão — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 04:25:11 +0000

Hello,

I saw in a previous post that the current firmware only supports MFAM streaming via Ethernet, and that UART5 isn't supported. I'm modifying the Dev Kit firmware to add TX output on UART4 instead, by adding a parallel Mailbox_post in spiTaskFxns.c to a new UART4 TX task/mailbox, at 460800 bps.

Before going further, I wanted to ask:

Is there any hardware-level reason UART4 wouldn't work here, beyond it just not being implemented in the stock firmware?
Does the existing SPI→Ethernet pipeline assume a single consumer, in a way that could cause timing issues if I add a second parallel mailbox post for UART4?
Has anyone tried UART-based streaming from the Dev Kit before, and if so, any known pitfalls?

Thanks in advance!

MFAM Dev Kit TIVA example code

Rui Zhang — Thu, 28 May 2026 21:47:28 +0000

We will provide the example source code for MFAM Dev Kit 'as-is' for your reference and review. Please note that we do not provide any technical support, maintenance, debugging, or updates for this code.

Click below to download:

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Methods for obtaining underwater positioning data during towing MagElement

Shinji Matsuda — Mon, 25 May 2026 05:04:52 +0000

If there are any practical examples of methods for acquiring underwater position information when towing a MagElement, please let me know.

For example, if acoustic positioning using transponders is employed, could you explain how it is implemented?