Abstract

Digitial Fault Models (DFM) play a vital role in the study of earthquake dynamics, fault-earthquake interactions, and seismicity. DFMs serve as input for finite-element method (FEM) or other earthquake simulations such as Virtual California. Generally, digital fault models are generated by importing a digitized and georeferenced (2D) fault map and/or a hillshade image of the study area into a geographical information system (GIS) application, where individual fault lines are traced by the user. Data assimilation and creation of a DFM, or updating an existing DFM based on new observations, is a tedious and time-consuming process. In order to facilitate the creation process, we are developing an immersive virtual reality (VR) application to visualize and edit fault models. This program is designed to run in immersive environments such as a CAVE (walk-in VR environment), but also works in a wide range of other environments, including desktop systems and GeoWalls. It is being developed at the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES, http://www.keckcaves.org). Our program allows users to create new models or modify existing ones; for instance by repositioning individual fault-segments, by changing the dip angle, or by modifying (or assigning) the value of a property associated with a particular fault segment (i.e. slip rate). With the addition of high resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEM) , georeferenced active tectonic fault maps and earthquake hypocenters, the user can accurately add new segments to an existing model or create a fault model entirely from scratch. Interactively created or modified models can be written to XML files at any time; from there the data may easily be converted into various formats required by the analysis software or simulation. We believe that the ease of interaction provided by VR technology is ideally suited to the problem of creating and editing digital fault models. Our software provides the user with an intuitive environment for visualizing and editing fault model data. This translates not only into less time spent creating fault models, but also enables the researcher to easily generate and maintain any number of models for use in ensemble analysis.