ObsPy - What Can It Do for Data Centers and Observatories?

Seismic centers data acquisition relies on real time systems like SeisComP3, Antelope or Earthworm. However, they are complex systems designed for fast and precisely defined standard real-time analysis. Therefore, it is not a simple task to access or modify internal routines and integrate them into custom processing workflows or perform in-depth data analysis. Often a library is necessary that provides convenient access to data and allows easy control over all operations performed on the data. ObsPy is such a library to access and process seismological waveform data and metadata. We motivate in short and simple examples how effective it is to use Python in seismological data analysis. Then, we illustrate the general capabilities of ObsPy and highlight some specific aspects that are relevant for seismological data centers and observatories presenting real world examples. At the end we also demonstrate how the ObsPy library can be used to develop custom GUI applications.

@article{id1644,
  author = {Megies, Tobias and Beyreuther, Moritz and Barsch, Robert and Krischer, Lion and Wassermann, Joachim},
  doi = {10.4401/ag-4838},
  journal = {Annals Of Geophysics},
  language = {en},
  number = {1},
  pages = {47-58},
  title = {ObsPy - What Can It Do for Data Centers and Observatories?},
  url = {http://www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/view/4838/5039},
  volume = {54},
  year = {2011},
}

%O Journal Article
%A Megies, Tobias
%A Beyreuther, Moritz
%A Barsch, Robert
%A Krischer, Lion
%A Wassermann, Joachim
%R 10.4401/ag-4838
%J Annals Of Geophysics
%G en
%N 1
%P 47-58
%T ObsPy - What Can It Do for Data Centers and Observatories?
%U http://www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/view/4838/5039
%V 54
%D 2011