Show traces

A fault trace is a new object type included in the TransGen version 3.2 release (see sections on TransGen version 3.2 and Traces and Fault Zones for details). While Traces are mainly of relevance when using the Include fault drag and hierarchical zone effects option in a "Flexible" TransGen project, ViewGen automatically recognises fault traces from the geometry of the input model - calculating and storing a number of properties for each one. So, even when using TransGen in "Basic project" mode (or in "Flexible project" mode without including fault drag and zone effects), fault traces contained explicitly in the parent model geometry (i.e. system or explicit traces) can be displayed in the ViewGen graphics window by toggling the Show traces, Edit option "on" and the properties of a selected trace viewed in a new Properties window.

Click on the Show traces option in the Edit menu to toggle the display of faulted traces "on" or "off". When toggled "on" a green indicator is visible (as shown below) and the traces are displayed in the main ViewGen graphics window.

The example below (a) shows a fairly conventional ViewGen display showing the cells in the bottom layer of a model and the transmissibility multipliers for all faults (or more accurately all faulted connections) in the model.

The next picture (b) shows the same view with Show faults toggled "off" and Show traces toggled "on" in the ViewGen Edit menu to display all the fault traces in the current model.  

All faulted traces are displayed in the main ViewGen window, both system traces (contained explicitly in the parent model geometry) and any user-defined traces. The traces are displayed in one of four colours:-

• Grey - for unmodified system traces.


• Yellow - for any trace with a user-defined throw value (irrespective of whether or not it is a system trace).


• Red - for any trace with a drag ratio not equal to 1 (irrespective of whether it was grey or yellow initially).


• Green - for any trace with a sub-resolution fault zone assigned to it (irrespective of whether it was grey, yellow or red initially).

NOTE:- The yellow traces in the foreground are user-defined traces specified using the TGTHROW keyword. These traces do not exist in the parent model and therefore no faulted connections are visible for these traces in (a) above.

A close-up of the same TransGen model displayed in the main ViewGen window is shown below with both traces and faults activated (fault connection properties have been deactivated and connection outlines activated in the Fault controls window, so faulted connections are superimposed on the traces). Also shown are the Properties and Sub-resolution display windows for three highlighted traces.

The Trace (b) is a user-defined trace which does not exist in the Parent model (i.e. no across- fault connections exist for this trace in the main ViewGen window). The geometry implied by the TGTHROW value and assigned to this trace is shown in the sub-resolution display.

The Trace (c) is also user-defined, but this time has a fault zone assigned to it. The full 3D geometry of the trace and related fault zone is shown in the sub-resolution display. The display therefore consists of two stacks, two stubs and a fault zone. By definition, stack 1 is always closest to the origin of the parent model i.e. I1=I2-1 for a DIR_X trace and J1=J2-1 for a DIR_Y trace. Each of these elements can be turned on and off, as can specific layers in the model. The stack and stub cells in the sub-resolution display window take the colour of the current cell property in the main window, but the ramp is always coloured yellow.

The Trace (d) is grey, indicating that it is a system trace which has not been modified by the new, trace-related functionality. The sub-resolution display for this trace therefore contains an identical geometry to the parent model.