OpenTOAST is a platform to share software, knowledge, contacts, and data for seismic full waveform inversion.

Where does it come from?

The OpenTOAST initiative was stimulated by the  TOAST project which stands for Toolbox for Applied Seismic Tomography.

Currently the contents still are on the move from the former project's web-site to this location. Please stay tuned to watch OpenTOAST grow. You are invited to contribute and share your own results. We would appreciate if OpenTOAST could refer to your software, results, and data too. Please get into contact with the maintainers through webmaster∂opentoast.de.

What does it stand for?

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is a leading edge technique to exploit the full signal content of seismic data. It promises sub-wavelength resolution, high performance in resolving P- and S-wave velocity as well as sensitivity to variations in mass density. In particular for surface wave studies, where conventional methods require lateral homogeneity of the structure under investigation, FWI opens a new window to subsurface imaging. Depending on the actual setting computational demands for FWI can be extraordinary and require state-of-the-art equipment and large computer clusters in the case of 3D application. Meanwhile a variety of implementations are developed in academic environments.

The OpenTOAST initiative pursues the goal to make these implementations available in source code to a broader academic community as well as to end-users. OpenTOAST is a platform to share software, knowledge, contacts, and data with others, publicly and free of charge. Computer programs are published free and open-source and are available under the  GNU General Public License (GPL)  in most cases.

How you can benefit

The OpenTOAST initiative is prosperous on a give-and-take basis. Just like you will benefit from others sharing the results of their work, you are invited to contribute yours.

Software library

The Software library is a collection of software descriptions coming along with download links. It contains software suites for full waveform inversion as well as tools required in the context of such applications. This covers waveform filters, data and model visualization and seismogram simulation. At the download locations program source code is provided usually such that you are able to build your own tools on the basis of existing software. If you do so, you are welcome to contribute improvements and extensions to existing programs in return. Certainly you are invited to provide your own independent code too. Do not hesitate to contact  webmaster ∂does-not-exist.opentoast de or one of the maintainers.

Data library

While the first step to test a new approach commonly is based on synthetic data, the final goal is inversion of field data. To make tests as realistic as possible, we maintain a collection of field data together with reference models inferred from these data. In the library we publish data-set descriptions along with contacts to researcher willing to share their data on request.

Benchmark library

An essential step in developing new software for seismic waveform simulation is validation of the results. For this purpose we collect the output of well tested programs for a set of standard subsurface models. You might like to test the output of your program against these benchmark results. You are welcome to provide waveform data of your benchmark calculations along with your software to this collection of reference solutions.

Technical specifications

Here we provide descriptions of commonly used data and model formats. You will appreciate this when working on data or models provided on this platform.

(Technical specifications are not yet online, please stay tuned)

Publications

In this section we collect scientific publications and recommended reading in the context of seismic full waveform inversion.

(Publications are not yet online, please stay tuned)