UCVM FAQ

First, we should confirm which CVM you would like to work with. The naming of CVM's can be confusing, because the names have not been used consistently over the last few years. As of 2017, the CVM names have settled, and CVM-S4.26 refers to a specific tomography improved CVM.

CVM-S4.26 refers to a version of CVM-S4 that was developed using full 3D tomography by Po Chen and En-Jui Lee. It has a high min Vs (about 900m/s) and it defines Vp, Vs, and rho on a 500 meter spaced grid. It has no background model, and it is only defined to about 50km.

A recent release of UCVM includes this model. When you query it, UCVM does trilnear interpolation to determine material properties between grid points. If this is the CVM model you want to work with, you can download it from a public repository at:

https://github.com/SCECcode/UCVMC/wiki

 Before you can query CVM-S4.26, UCVM must be built and installed on a Linux computer, such as USC HPC research computing center. If your group is used to building open-source software on Linux computers, then they may be able to work through the installation process described on the UCVM github wiki. I have gone through the UCVM installation process many times, and I know it can be challenging to new users.

https://github.com/SCECcode/UCVMC/wiki/Installation

 Let me know if this is the model you wish to work with, and if your group has Linux computers where they can install it. If so, I would recommend we have a telecon to walk one, or more, of your group through the installation process.

 If you are planning small-scale tests of the CVM-S4.26, we can provide a Virtual Box installation which would enable users to query CVM-S4.26 on a Mac. However, it might take us a few more days to create this kind of distribution.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you'd like help getting a working version installed on a local Linux system.