Automatic picking in the refraction microtremor (ReMi) technique

using morphology and color processing

J.J. Galiana-Merino
a,b,n
, F. Ortiz-Zamora
a,b
, J.L. Rosa-Herranz
a,b
a
Departamento de F sica, Ingenier a de Sistemas y Teor a de la Sen al, Universidad de Alicante, P.O. Box 99, E-03080 Alicante, Spain
b
University Institute of Physics Applied to Sciences and Technologies, Universidad de Alicante, P.O. Box 99, E-03080 Alicante, Spain
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 16 May 2011
Received in revised form
10 March 2012
Accepted 27 May 2012
Available online 2 July 2012
a b s t r a c t
The refraction-microtremor (ReMi) technique is one of the array methods widely used for characteriz-
ing soils by the estimation of the dispersion curve (slowness versus frequency of the Rayleigh waves).
This technique provides a slownessfrequency image where the dispersion curve has to be manually
picked by an expert geophysicist. Therefore, this is always a subjective process based on the visual
perception of the analyst and without any objective measure of the possible deviation or error of the
selected picks. In this paper, a new automatic picking approach based on color processing and
morphology is presented. The mean dispersion curve is obtained, but also some indicators (standard
deviation and weight) of the reliability of the estimated slowness values. The proposed algorithm has
been tested on images with different features and qualities obtained from 18 sites with different
geological characteristics. For all the analyzed images, the estimated dispersion curves are consistent
with the analyst picks in the corresponding frequency range, even in cases of poor quality images.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Soil characterization is a very important issue from the seismo-
logical point of view in order to study the possible earthquake
effects (site effects). In seismically active areas, the knowledge of the
characteristics of these soils as well as their spatial distribution is of
great interest for land use planning and for civil engineering.
Therefore, site effect studies (microzonation) have become an
important part of the seismic risk characterization, and a variety
of geotechnical, geophysical and seismological techniques have been
developed and applied over the last years to resolve soil character-
istics, such as the shear-wave velocity (Vs), density, etc., of a given
site. Among these properties, the shear-wave velocity is considered
to be the single best indicator of stiffness [1,2].
Techniques based on borehole information and related geo-
technical analyses are too expensive and time consuming to
estimate Vs proles in urban areas. This is the main reason why
non-destructive methods are increasingly preferred for the esti-
mation of the Vs proles across a soil structure. In recent years,
seismic exploration based on ambient noise recordings has
emerged as a promising method, as the data acquisition process
can be relatively cheap and easily applied in urban areas, and they
do not require articial seismic sources.
These methods are based on the dispersion property of the
surface waves, which is most sensitive to S-wave variations with
depth [3]. As the waveeld generated by surface seismic sources
(e.g. weight drop or ambient noise) mainly consists of surface
waves, the surface wave dispersion curves may be measured and
the corresponding Vs proles may also be estimated (e.g. [4,5]).
In this context, the common procedures used for recording
ambient noise are based on array measurements, where the records
are obtained from a set of several sensors recording simultaneously.
After that, there are several methods for analyzing this recorded
data and obtaining the surface wave dispersion curves. Some of the
most popular and standardized techniques used for calculating the
experimental dispersion curves are the refraction microtremor
(ReMi) technique [6], the frequencywavenumber (fk) transform
[711], the spatial autocorrelation (SPAC) analysis [12,13] and the
extended spatial autocorrelation (ESAC) analysis [12,14,15].
Once the dispersion curve is obtained, the Vs prole can be
estimated through different approaches, such as linearized meth-
ods [16,17], simulated annealing [18], genetic algorithms [19] or
the neighborhood algorithm developed by Sambridge [20]. For
any of these approaches, the estimation of the Vs proles depends
largely on the specicity and accuracy of the obtained surface
wave dispersion curves. Therefore, the calculation of the surface
wave dispersion curves becomes a crucial step in all this process,
independently of the techniques used.
In the most of the cases (e.g. fk, SPAC and ESAC analysis), the
selection of the dispersion curves follows a clear mathematical
criterion that can be accomplished through an automatic process.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering
0267-7261/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2012.05.024
n
Corresponding author at: Departamento de Fsica, Ingeniera de Sistemas y
Teora de la Senal, Universidad de Alicante, P.O. Box 99, E-03080 Alicante, Spain.
Tel.: 34 965909636; fax: 34 965909750.
E-mail address: juanjo@dsts.ua.es (J.J. Galiana-Merino).
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104
In the case of the ReMi technique, since the arrays are linear
and ambient noise comes from all directions, some noise energy
will arrive obliquely and appear on the slownessfrequency
images as peaks at apparent velocities higher than the real in-
line phase velocity [6]. Therefore, apparent phase velocities
picked on the largest spectral ratio peaks in the slowness
frequency (pf) domain image may provide articially high
values. In this case, an automatic selection of the peaks does
not provide the appropriate dispersion curve. Thus, an expert
geophysicist must try to manually pick points along the lower
boundary of the maximum amplitude region. Louie [6] and
Stephenson et al. [21] propose some recommendations to carry
out the manual picking process. But, in any way, the manual
picking of one or more points at each frequency is highly
dependent on the experience of the geophysicist, with the
corresponding lack of accuracy.
In this work, we have developed a new method for estimating
automatically the dispersion curve in the pf domain image by
using color analysis and morphology techniques. The proposed
method follows the guidelines indicated by the ReMi analysis for
picking the points along the lower boundary of the maximum
amplitude region, but it is free from the human subjectivity. The
process is carried out for an interval of hue values, obtaining a
preliminary set of estimated curves. In this way, the algorithm
provides the mean and the standard deviation of the estimated
dispersion curve as a result. Moreover, it also assigns a weight to
each frequency, according to the number of the preliminary
curves used for the estimation of the mean value.
In the next sections, the theoretical background, as well as the
methodology will be described. After that, the data analysis and
the main obtained results will be presented in detail, showing
different estimated Rayleigh wave dispersion curves and compar-
ing the results with the manual picking by an expert geophysicist.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Refraction microtremor (ReMi) technique
The refraction microtremor (ReMi) method [6] provides an
effective and efcient way to estimate the soil characteristics
along a linear array. The theoretical basis of the analysis is the
p-tau transformation [22], which converts a section of multiple
seismograms (xt plot) to amplitudes relative to the ray para-
meter, p, (slowness or inverse velocity) and the intercept time,
tau. Subsequently, the power spectrum in the tau direction is
calculated in order to obtain the slownessfrequency (pf)
representation.
The obtained image is rendered with the frequency plotted
along the horizontal (x) axis, the slowness plotted down the
vertical (y) axis and the amplitude of the power spectrum
represented on basis of a pre-dened RGB color scale. Both axes
are linear in frequency and slowness and the origin (0,0) of the
image is in the top left-hand corner. We refer to this image as
S
RGB
(x9
Frequency
, y9
Slowness
).
If a large component of the recorded wave eld consists of
Rayleigh waves, then it is possible to identify their phase-velocity
dispersion as a function of frequency from the image produced in
the pf plane. However, the interpretation of the pf images
obtained from the ReMi method is not straightforward.
The maximum values in the image would correspond to the
Rayleigh phase-velocity dispersion curve if the microtremor wave
eld were traveling in the direction of the linear array of
geophones. However, the recorded noise includes Rayleigh waves
propagating with similar power in many different directions.
Since energy oblique to the array travels faster than energy
along the array, the peaks in the slownessfrequency (pf) image
would yield higher velocities than the true Rayleigh wave phase
velocity, if enough noise is not traveling in all directions. There-
fore, the Rayleigh wave dispersion curve has to be picked along a
minimum velocity envelope of the energy. Louie [6] suggests to
also pick upper and lower-bound values to dene a range. The
upper boundary is along the energy peaks, and the lower
boundary is where the spectral ratios approach those of uncorre-
lated noise
Typical Rayleigh wave dispersion curves run from small slow-
ness values at low frequencies, down to the right toward larger
slowness values at higher frequencies. Therefore, the rst step in
picking the dispersion curve is to identify the normal-mode
dispersion trend, down to the right (starting from the upper left)
and distinct from the aliasing and artifact trends, which are down
to the left (Fig. 1). When the pf image is rendered using the
Vspect
TM
color palette, as it is used in this work, the dispersion
curve follows the trend of warm colors that goes from the upper-
left section of the image to the lower right. The higher spectral
ratios are plotted as the warmer colors.
Artifacts
Dispersion curve trend
Fig. 1. Example of slownessfrequency image obtained through the ReMi technique. The dispersion curve trend, the aliasing effects and the artifacts are identied on
the image.
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 96
Once the dispersion curve trend has been identied, we should
try to pick the lowest energy bound of the high-amplitude (high
spectral ratios) trend. It means to pick following the zone where
the warmer colors start to blend with the cooler ones (that is
the transition between the olive green and dark blue colors).
This stays closest to the real velocities, and below the higher
apparent velocities of waves traveling obliquely to the geophone
array. We should avoid to make picks in areas where the warmer
colors are absent (lack of high spectral ratio) or where there are
gaps in the trend.
2.2. Color space for processing
The evaluation of color information in the image creates
additional new possibilities for solving problems in computer
vision. The fundamental difference between color images and
gray-level images is that in a color space, a color vector (which
generally consists of three components) is assigned to every pixel
of a color image. Thus, in color image processing, vector-valued
image functions are treated instead of the scalar image functions
used in gray-level image processing.
Several coordinate systems are available for representing color
images [23,24]. The most common one is the RGB color system
(red, green and blue components). Nevertheless, for image pro-
cessing it is more advisable to use HSI (hue, saturation and
intensity), HSV (hue, saturation and value or brightness) or HLS
(hue, lightness and saturation) color spaces. These spaces
are more closely akin to the human interpretation of colors.
The components of these color models are the human perceptual
attributes of color: hue, saturation and luminance or intensity.
As such, in this work we use the HSI color space for processing.
Fig. 2 shows a cylindrical representation of the HSI model, where
0rSr1, 0rI r1, and 0rHr2p. In a discrete lattice, these
values are usually normalized to integers in the range [0,255].
The transformation from RGB to the HSI model can be carried
out with the Foley and van Dam formulas [25]. The hue of the
color, H, characterizes the dominant color contained in a pixel.
Taking the red primary at 01, H can be obtained as
H
d if BrG
2pd if B4G
(
1
with
d cos
1
RGRB
2

RG
2
RBGB
q
0
B
@
1
C
A 2
The saturation of the color, S, is a measurement of the color
purity. This parameter is dependent on the number of wave-
lengths that contributes to the color perception. S1 corresponds
to a pure color and S0 for an achromatic color. S is given by
S 13
minR,G,B
RGB
3
The intensity of the color, I, corresponds to the relative
brightness (in the sense of a gray-level image). The intensity is
dened in accordance with
I
RGB
3
4
The existence of the singularities in H and S is a disadvantage
for the HSI color space. In addition, hue is undened for achro-
matic colors.
In Fig. 3, we show the whole range of possible hue values, from
0 to 2p, for some xed saturation and intensity values. In this
gure, we have also pointed out the hue interval corresponding to
the transition region indicated by the ReMi technique for the
picks (see Section 2.1). This hue interval is approximately
between 1.44p (blue color) and 1.64p (warmer colors).
As we can see in Fig. 3, it does not have any perceptual sense to
order the different colors from the lowest to the highest values
(e.g. blue colors higher than red colors). However, we could use a
distance function to measure the proximity between two differ-
ent colors. In this sense, Peters [26] and Hanbury and Serra [27]
use a distance function dened as
dH,H
ref

9Hx,yH
ref
9 if 9Hx,yH
ref
9rp
2p9Hx,yH
ref
9 if 9Hx,yH
ref
94p
(
5
I
n
t
e
n
s
i
t
y
Saturation
Hue
Fig. 2. HSI color space. Cylindrical representation.
0
0.50
1.00
1.50
1.44 1.64
Fig. 3. Color wheel representation of hue values from 0 to 2p. The hue interval
[1.44p1.64p] corresponding to the transition region indicated by the ReMi
technique for the picks is also marked. (For interpretation of the references to
color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 97
where H(x, y) is the hue value estimated at the pixel (x, y) and H
ref
is a hue value taken as a reference.
2.3. Mathematical morphology and connected operators
Mathematical morphology is a theory and technique for the
analysis and processing of geometrical structures, based on set
theory, lattice theory, topology and random functions. Mathema-
tical morphology is also the foundation of morphological image
processing, which consists of a set of operators that transform
images according to the size of a structuring element. Thus, it
becomes a powerful image-analysis technique with applications
in ltering, enhancement, feature extraction, etc. [28].
In binary morphology, white objects, (X
i
)
i AZ
X, contained in a
binary image, S
BW
, are considered as sets. All the morphological
operations are based on the interaction between these white
objects and another image object of known shape, called the
structuring element, B.
Basic operations in mathematical morphology are erosion and
dilation. Erosion and dilation are duals of each other with respect
to set complementation and reection. The erosion of a set X by a
structuring element B is denoted by e
B
(X)
e
B
X x,yAS
BW
=B
x,y
DX

6
where B
(x,y)
is the translation of B by the vector (x, y).
The dilation of a set X by a structuring element B is denoted by
d
B
(X)
d
B
X x,y AS
BW
=B
x,y
\ Xa+

7
Erosion and dilation can be used in a variety of ways, in
parallel and series, to give other transformations including thick-
ening, thinning, skeletonization and many other. Two very
important transformations based in erosion and dilation are
opening and closing. Intuitively, dilation expands an image object
and erosion shrinks it. Opening generally smoothes a contour in
an image, breaking narrow isthmuses and eliminating thin
protrusions. Opening is erosion followed by dilation (ged).
Closing tends to narrow smooth sections of contours, fusing
narrow breaks and long thin gulfs, eliminating small holes, and
lling gaps in contours. Closing is a dilation followed by erosion
(fde). Just as with dilation and erosion, opening and closing are
dual operations.
An interesting eld of mathematical morphology is the con-
nected (geodesic) operators [29,30]. In geodesic transformations,
the morphological operators applied to an original image involve a
second image, known as the mask, which conditions the nal
results. In our method we use the geodesic operation of area
opening. This operation removes from a binary image all connected
components, X, that have fewer than a minimal dened area, l40.
Thus, the area opening of parameter l of X is dened as
g
l
X [ XAS
BW
=AreaXZl

8
3. Proposed method
The proposed picking algorithm operates as follows:
1) Selection of the slownessfrequency image
Given the recorded image in the original format (e.g. Fig. 4a),
as it is provided by the proprietary software package Sei-
sOpt
s
ReMi
TM
[6,31], we remove the gray frame and select
only the image corresponding to the slownessfrequency
values (Fig. 4b). The automatic selection of this image is
based on the RGB color characteristics. Indeed, a gray/black
color has the same value for the three channels in the RGB
space. Therefore, the algorithm runs along all the rows and
columns and automatically identies the upper, down, left
and right frontiers of the image where differences appear
between the RGB values. Once we have this image, the
relation between the x and y positions of a pixel (x9
Frequency
,
y9
Slowness
) and the corresponding frequency and slowness
values (f, p) are also obtained. For that, we need that the user
previously introduces the maximum values analyzed of
slowness and frequency.
Dp
max p

max y9
Slowness
Df
max f

max x9
Frequency
n o 9
2) Selection of the hue interval.
The proposed algorithm repeats the estimation of the disper-
sion curve for different hue values, H
ref
. By default, it auto-
matically runs from a hue value of 1.44p (blue color) to 1.64p
(warmer colors), covering the area where the picking is
recommended (see Fig. 3). We use a wide hue interval in
order to make the algorithm more robust to different images
and color ranges. However, this hue interval can also be
selected by the user, who can choose a narrower range. With
respect to the number of iterations, N
i
, it is set by default to
50 although it can be modied. Consequently, the hue step
applied in the process depends on the selected hue interval
and the number of iterations.
3) Hue ltering in the HSI space.
The slownessfrequency image is converted from the RGB to
the HSI space, following Eqs. (1)(4). In this color space, the
distance between the image hue and a reference hue is
calculated according to Eq. (5) (Fig. 4c). After that, using the
hue distance result, the image in the RGB space, S
RGB
(x9
Frequency
,
y9
Slowness
), is modied according to the following criterion:
S
BW
x9
Frequency
,y9
Slowness

0 if dH,H
ref
rd
Threshold
1 if dH,H
ref
4d
Threshold
(
10
where d
Threshold
is a margin selected around the H
ref
value. In
our case, d
Threshold
has been set up by default to 0.20p. After
this ltering, the previous image is converted to a black and
white image, S
BW
(x9
Frequency
, y9
Slowness
), as it is shown in Fig. 4d.
4) Transformation to the wavenumberfrequency domain.
The new slownessfrequency image, S
BW
(x9
Frequency
, y9
Slowness
),
is converted to the wavenumberfrequency domain applying
these equations:
S
BW
x9
Frequency
,y9
Wavenumber
x9
Frequency
,2px9
Frequency
y9
Slowness
F
n o
11
where F is a compression factor which assures that the size of
the new image, S
BW
(x9
Frequency
, y9
Wavenumber
), remains the same
than S
BW
(x9
Frequency
, y9
Slowness
). This factor is expressed as
F
max y9
Slowness

max y9
Wavenumber
12
with
max y9
Wavenumber

2pmax x9
Frequency
n o
max y9
Slowness

13
Using this transformation, the region of interest, where the
picking process has to be carried out, is transformed from a
curvilinear prole into an approximately linear prole. More-
over, the use of the factor F implies a horizontal compression.
Thus, small irregularities (convexities, gaps, etc.) in the prole
of interest are minimized after the transformation, providing
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 98
an almost continuous shape. In Fig. 4e, one example is shown.
Note that after this transformation, all the information of the
image is contained above the diagonal line. Below this line,
the pixels are simply white.
5) Morphological operations.
In this step, two morphological operations are applied in
order to improve the image: area opening and dilation. First,
all connected white objects that have fewer than N pixels are
removed from the binary image (Fig. 4f). In the proposed
algorithm, the default connectivity has been set to 50 pixels,
which experimentally has demonstrated to work well in the
analyzed images.
After that, the image is dilated using a disk shaped structuring
element of 3 pixels radius. Dilation expands the white objects,
eliminating small holes and lling gaps in contours (Fig. 4g).
6) Dispersion curve detection in the wavenumberfrequency
image.
In the processed image, the region of interest is always
located in the upper left corner of the image and the
transition between white and black colors in the objects
located in this region of the image corresponds to the
dispersion curve. Therefore, an specic routine has been
designed for detecting the upper border of the objects located
at the upper left corner of the image.
In the rst step the algorithm, starting at the point (0, 0), runs
updown, leftright on the image looking for a black pixel,
which would be the rst pixel (x
1
, y
1
) of the region of interest
(Fig. 5a).
Once the rst pixel has been identied, the algorithm takes
this pixel as new starting point for the next iteration.
Now, the proposed algorithm analyzes the next column,
x
1
1, running from y
1
10 to y
1
10 looking for a transition
from white to black colors (Fig. 5b), which corresponds to
the next point of interest, (x
2
, y
2
). The margin of 10 has been
Fig. 4. Graphical description of the results obtained through steps 1 to 5 of the proposed algorithm. (a), (b) Step 1: Removing of the gray frame, (c) Steps 2,3: Hue ltering
with H
ref
1.6p, (d) Step 3: Conversion from RGB to B&W, (e) Step 4: Transformation to the f-k domain, (f) Step 5: Morphological operation: Area opening (g) Step 5:
Morphological operation: Dilation. (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 99
chosen experimentally for considering small changes in
the slope of the object of interest. However, as it was commen-
ted in step 4, the transformation to the wavenumberfrequency
domain provides a nearly linear prole for the region of interest
and thus, abrupt changes of slope are not expected.
For the next iteration, the point (x
2
, y
2
) is taken as starting point
and therefore, the analysis for the next column, x
2
1, goes from
y
2
10 to y
2
10. The process is repeated column by column as
long as a white to black transition is detected in each iteration
(Fig. 5c).
The process ends when white to black transitions are not
detected for six consecutive columns (Fig. 5d). We have chosen
experimentally the value of 6, which is small enough to prevent
from aborting the process by a sudden change or gap in the
object of interest, or from continuing with other black object
different to the object of interest.
7) Dispersion curve estimation in the slownessfrequency domain.
Once the dispersion curve has been estimated in the
wavenumberfrequency image, the inverse transformation
is applied in order to estimate the corresponding dispersion
curve in the frequencyslowness image.
y9
Slowness

y9
Wavenumber
2px9
Frequency
F
14
The morphological operation (area opening and dilation of
white objects) tends to overestimate the estimated slowness
values. This means that the dispersion curve is correctly
estimated on the object of interest, but it may be located on
the pink region of the object (see Fig. 4c). This irregular bias
can be corrected by analyzing the estimated dispersion curve
in Fig. 4c and modifying the slowness values at each
frequency position in such a way that the dispersion curve
goes along the edge of black and pink colors.
Once the dispersion curve has been estimated on the image as a
function of the pixel positions (x9
Frequency
, y9
Slowness
), the associated
dispersion curve (slowness versus frequency) can be obtained as
p y9
Slowness
Dp
f x9
Frequency
Df 15
As the dispersion curve has been estimated through the analysis
of the pixels of the image, the estimated result is not a
continuous line, as can be seen in Fig. 5. To eliminate this
quantication effect, a median lter of order 20 is applied on
the previously estimated curve.
8) Estimation of the mean dispersion curve.
As it was commented previously (step 2), the proposed
algorithm repeats the estimation of the dispersion curve for
different hue values, H
ref
. Therefore, steps 27 are repeated
since all the selected hue values, H
ref
, are analyzed and all the
N
i
(number of iterations) dispersion curves are estimated.
After that, the mean dispersion curve and the corresponding
standard deviation are calculated with some restrictions that
assure the feasibility of the dispersion curves used.
First of all, if the frequency bandwidth of one dispersion curve
is narrower than the mean frequency bandwidth estimated for all
the estimated dispersion curves then, this curve is rejected. Note
that we are comparing the number of frequency points (band-
width) analyzed in each curve, but not the frequency values.
After this rst selection, the mean and the standard deviation
are calculated for each frequency point. If the standard deviation
is twice the mean standard deviation obtained for all the
frequency points then, this frequency point is rejected. If the
number of slowness values used for estimating the mean value at
one frequency point is lower than the 10% of the number of
curves then, this frequency point is also rejected.
Fig. 5. Dispersion curve detection in the wavenumberfrequency image. Detection of the rst point of the curve (a); detection of the dispersion curve at different points of
the image (b and c); and end of the detection process (d).
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 100
In this case we have applied these restrictive criteria for the
selection of the curves and the slowness values, but any other
criteria might be also valid if they guarantee the feasibility of the
samples used for estimating the mean dispersion curves. Anyway,
the absence of these criteria would not seriously affect the
estimated mean values, but it would increase the standard
deviation and then, the error associated to the estimation of the
mean curve.
Thus, the proposed algorithm returns as a result a 4-column
le with the following parameters: frequency, mean slowness,
standard deviation and weight (number of curves used for the
estimation of the mean value). The le is saved as a four-column
ASCII le, in the same format that the Geopsy package software
[11,32] uses for characterizing the dispersion curve data.
In Fig. 6a, we show the mean dispersion curve obtained for the
example explained through Figs. 4 and 5. In Fig. 6b, we compare
the estimated dispersion curve with the one picked by a geophy-
sicist. We can see that there are not signicant differences
between both curves. The only difference is with respect to the
rst pick (2.2 Hz, 300 m/s) indicated by the geophysicist and not
reached by the proposed method, which starts at 2.7 Hz.
Nevertheless the inclusion (or not) of this manual pick might be
a matter of discussion attending to the recommendations of the
ReMi method, which suggests to avoid picking near the area of
artifacts (see Fig. 1).
4. Results and discussion
The proposed method has been applied on images obtained
from the ReMi technique at 18 sites around the province of
Alicante (southeastern Spain). We have selected sites with differ-
ent geological characteristics and images of different quality in
order to test the performance of the proposed automatic
algorithm.
The seismic noise measurements were taken using a 24-channel
seismic refraction equipment (RAS-24 Exploration Seismograph
Seistronix) with 10-Hz vertical-component geophones spaced at
regular intervals (410 m) along a linear prole. From Louie [6], we
could consider that the equipment and conguration used were
enough to estimate in some cases the Rayleigh dispersion curves at
frequencies as low as 2 Hz and shear-wave velocity proles up to
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
Frequency (Hz)
0
0.005
0.000
0.010
0.015
0.020
ReMi Espectral Ratio
0.0 2.5
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y


(
m
/
s
)
Frequency (Hz)
Estimated dispersion curve
Manual picks
20 15 10 5
Fig. 6. Estimated dispersion curve obtained for the example explained through Figs. 4 and 5(a). Comparison between the estimated dispersion curve and the geophysicist
picks (b).
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 101
100 m depths. The data acquisition was prepared to capture four
32-s records at a sample rate of 500 Hz. Each one of the four
segments was taken with different gain (12, 24, 36 and 48 dB) to
have the option to improve the signal to noise ratio through a
stacking of the four.
The array data were processed according to the ReMi analysis
(Louie, 2001) using the SeisOpts ReMi
TM
software [6,31]. Thus,
the recorded data were transformed from the timedistance
domain to the slownessfrequency image. After that, these
images were analyzed by the proposed method in order to
estimate the corresponding empirical dispersion curves.
In Fig. 7, we show the results obtained automatically for four
sites with different geological characteristics and different image
features. Only the upper half of the obtained images, where is
contained the information of interest, is shown. In all the analyzed
cases we obtain reliable dispersion curves in the frequency range of
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
ReMi Espectral Ratio
0.0 2.5
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
0 5 10 15 20
0 5 10 15 20
0 5 10 15 20
0 5 10 15 20
Fig. 7. Estimated dispersion curves obtained automatically at 4 sites with different geological characteristics and different images features.
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 102
interest, according to the ReMi recommendations and the geophy-
sicist experience.
Note that typical dispersion curves run from small slowness
values at low frequencies, down to the right toward larger
slowness values at higher frequencies. Therefore, a change of this
tendency at low frequencies (increase of the slowness values)
indicates the lower frequency limit of the dispersion curve.
In Fig. 7ac, the change of this tendency at low frequencies can
be identied as a local minimum of slowness, which is located in
these gures at 2.6, 3.4 and 3.6 Hz, respectively. At high frequen-
cies, a change of the normal tendency (decrease of the slowness
values) indicates the higher frequency limit of the dispersion
curves.
These assumptions are always considered independently of
the method used for estimating the dispersion curve: for example
in the application of the frequencywavenumber (fk) or the
extended spatial autocorrelation (ESAC) methods.
With these considerations, the valid dispersion curves asso-
ciated with the four examples shown in Fig. 7 are included in the
following frequency ranges: 2.612.0 Hz, 3.418.4 Hz, 3.623.2 Hz
and 2.614.6 Hz.
Finally, in Fig. 8 we also show two cases where the analyzed
images present a very poor quality. In both images, the transition
between blue and warmer colors is not well dened, especially at
high frequencies. Moreover, the aliasing limit is not identied in
one of the images (Fig. 8a). Despite these inconveniences, the
proposed algorithm also provides satisfactory dispersion curves in
an automatic way. With respect to the valid dispersion curves,
they are included in the range of 2.76.0 Hz and 2.111.7 Hz for
Fig. 8(a) and (b), respectively.
5. Conclusions
The ReMi technique is one of the widely used methods for
estimating the dispersion curve associated with a site. This technique
provides a slownessfrequency image where the dispersion curve has
to be manually picked by an expert geophysicist. Therefore, this is
always a subjective process based on the visual perception of the
analyst and without any objective measure of the possible error or
deviation of the selected picks.
In this paper, we present a new automatic method for
estimating the dispersion curve from the slownessfrequency
images provided by the ReMi technique. The proposed method
is based on color processing and morphology, and estimates
properly the dispersion curves for all the analyzed images, even
in cases of poor quality.
Our algorithm has been tested on images with different
features and qualities obtained from 18 sites with different
geological characteristics. For all the analyzed images, the esti-
mated valid dispersion curves are according to the guidelines
established by Louie [6] and the manual picking that an expert
geophysicist might select in the corresponding frequency range.
The proposed algorithm runs automatically and provides a
four-column ASCII le with the following parameters: frequency,
mean slowness, standard deviation and weight. In this way, we
obtain the mean dispersion curve, but also some indicators
(standard deviation and weight) of the reliability of the estimated
slowness values. Furthermore, this le can be directly used by
other softwares for estimating the shear-wave velocity prole
from the obtained dispersion curve.
Acknowledgments
This work has been carried out thanks to the nancial support
of the Spanish Government (MARSH-CGL200762454) and the
Generalitat Valenciana (Projects GV05/247, REN2001-1674/RIES
and REN2003-01975). We are also very grateful to the Local
Seismic Network, University of Alicante (supported by Diputacio n
de Alicante) for providing us instruments and software for the
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
0
ReMi Espectral Ratio
0.0 2.5
S
l
o
w
n
e
s
s


(
s
/
m
)
0.005
0.000
0.010
Frequency (Hz)
0
5 10 15
5 10 15
Fig. 8. Dispersion curves estimated on two different poor-quality images.
J.J. Galiana-Merino et al. / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 42 (2012) 95104 103
experiments. Finally, we would like to thank P. Ja uregui for his
help in analyzing the data.
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