RDMSEED Read miniSEED format file.
X = RDMSEED(F) reads file F and returns a M-by-1 structure X containing
M blocks (“data records”) of a miniSEED file with headers, blockettes,
and data in dedicated fields, in particular, for each data block X(i):
t: time vector (DATENUM format)
d: data vector (double)
BLOCKETTES: existing blockettes (substructures)

Known blockettes are 100, 500, 1000, 1001 and 2000. Others will be
ignored with a warning message.
X = RDMSEED(F,ENCODINGFORMAT,WORDORDER,RECORDLENGTH), when file F does
not include the Blockette 1000 (like Seismic Handler outputs), specifies:
- ENCODINGFORMAT: FDSN code (see below); default is 10 = Steim-1;
- WORDORDER: 1 = big-endian (default), 0 = little-endian;
- RECORDLENGTH: must be a power of 2, at least 256 (default is 4096).
If the file contains Blockette 1000 (which is mandatory in the SEED
convention…), these 3 arguments are ignored except with ‘force’ option.
X = RDMSEED without input argument opens user interface to select the
file from disk.
[X,I] = RDMSEED(…) returns a N-by-1 structure I with N the detected
number of different channels, and the following fields:
ChannelFullName: channel name,
XBlockIndex: channel’s vector index into X,
ClockDrift: vector of time interval errors, in seconds,
between each data block (relative to sampling
period). This can be compared to “Max Clock Drift”
value of a Blockette 52.
= 0 in perfect case
< 0 tends to overlapping
> 0 tends to gapping
OverlapBlockIndex: index of blocks (into X) having a significant
overlap with previous block (less than 0.5
sampling period).
OverlapTime: time vector of overlapped blocks (DATENUM format).
GapBlockIndex: index of blocks (into X) having a significant gap
with next block (more than 0.5 sampling period).
GapTime: time vector of gapped blocks (DATENUM format).
RDMSEED(…) without output arguments plots the imported signal by
concatenating all the data records, in one single plot if single channel
is detected, or subplots for multiplexed file (limited to 10 channels).
Gaps are shown with red stars, overlaps with green circles.
[…] = RDMSEED(F,…,’be’) forces big-endian reading (overwrites the
automatic detection of endianness coding, which fails in some cases).
[…] = RDMSEED(F,…,’notc’) disable time correction.
[…] = RDMSEED(F,…,’plot’) forces the plot with output arguments.
[…] = RDMSEED(F,…,’v’) uses verbose mode (displays additional
information and warnings when necessary). Use ‘vv’ for extras, ‘vvv’
for debuging.
Some instructions for usage of the returned structure:
- to get concatenated time and data vectors from a single-channel file:
X = rdmseed(f,’plot’);
t = cat(1,X.t);
d = cat(1,X.d);
- to get the list of channels in a multiplexed file:
[X,I] = rdmseed(f);
char(I.ChannelFullName)
- to extract the station component n from a multiplexed file:
[X,I] = rdmseed(f);
k = I(n).XBlockIndex;
plot(cat(1,X(k).t),cat(1,X(k).d))
datetick(‘x’)
title(I(n).ChannelFullName)
Known encoding formats are the following FDSN codes:
0: ASCII
1: 16-bit integer
2: 24-bit integer
3: 32-bit integer
4: IEEE float32
5: IEEE float64
10: Steim-1
11: Steim-2
12: GEOSCOPE 24-bit (untested)
13: GEOSCOPE 16/3-bit gain ranged
14: GEOSCOPE 16/4-bit gain ranged
19: Steim-3 (alpha and untested)
See also MKMSEED to export data in miniSEED format.
Author: Fran�ois Beauducel beauducel@ipgp.fr
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
Created: 2010-09-17
Updated: 2014-06-29
Acknowledgments:
Ljupco Jordanovski, Jean-Marie Saurel, Mohamed Boubacar, Jonathan Berger,
Shahid Ullah, Wayne Crawford, Constanza Pardo, Sylvie Barbier,
Robert Chase, Arnaud Lemarchand.
References:
IRIS (2010), SEED Reference Manual: SEED Format Version 2.4, May 2010,
IFDSN/IRIS/USGS, http://www.iris.edu
Trabant C. (2010), libmseed: the Mini-SEED library, IRIS DMC.
Steim J.M. (1994), ‘Steim’ Compression, Quanterra Inc.