Visualizing the Seismic Spectral Response of the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake Using Volume Rendering Technique
Tung-Ju Hsieh, Yuan‐Sen Yang · Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering · 2011
This paper presents an innovative method using volume rendering computer graphics techniques for visualizing the spectral information of a seismic response, using the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan as an example. In conventional visualizations of the seismic response, a response spectrum is limited to a particular location, while a spectral response map is constrained to a particular natural period. As a result, the peak pseudoacceleration may be missed. The proposed method represents spectral data in a three-dimensional volume, in which the x- and y-axes are the longitude and latitude over an area, respectively, while the z-axis represents the natural period. This visualization system can observe the spectral information of a seismic response with a range of periods over a large-area through the rendered volume. Thus, the peak pseudoacceleration can be found and identified. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique, we provide a case study of the magnitude (Mw) 7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan, 1999, which was the most thoroughly recorded earthquake event in history, with more than 400 stations recording the event.