[webservices] event service questions

[Yazan Suleiman]

Hi

> 1) What is the intended meaning of "includeallmagnitude


includeallmagnitude means to include all magnitudes related to the origin selected and not the event.  Remember the service returns preferred origins by default.  So when the includeallmagnitude=yes, all magnitudes for the preferred origin will be returned only.

includeallmagnitude is intended to differentiate whether a user wants all magnitudes or only the preferred one.  At this time, we have no pointer to a preferred magnitude, so when includeallmagnitude=no, no magnitudes are returned.

We are working on the next release and the behavior will change as we will include preferred magnitudes, therefore when  includeallmagnitude=no, only the preferred magnitude will be returned.  In addition, unlike this version, includeallmagnitude will mean all magnitudes related to an event and not only an origin.  So the default will have preferred origin and a preferred magnitude.

2) try this for an example:
http://www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?eventid=3279407&includeallmagnitudes=yes&preferredonly=no
This event has "smi:www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?originId=7680412" as the preferred origin, but the query also shows another origin with id: smi:www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?originId=7690242


3) It is not clear to me what your question is, when you do not select a catalog, then the query runs through all catalogs, otherwise it picks those event within a catalog.

4) I don't think we will support multiple catalogs "search" as this will confuse the intended meaning of "preferredonly + catalog" search criteria, plus other reasons.


Please let me know if you have an other questions.  Yazan



On May 23, 2012, at 12:48 PM, Philip Crotwell wrote:

> Hi
> 
> A couple of questions about the event web service.
> 
> 1) What is the intended meaning of "includeallmagnitudes"? I appears
> to me that it means include zero or one magnitude, but never includes
> more than that. For example this query finds one origin and one
> magnitude:
> 
> http://www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?minmag=5&starttime=2000-06-08T12%3A10%3A00&endtime=2000-06-08T13%3A00%3A00&includeallmagnitudes=yes&orderby=time
> 
> The same query except dropping the includeallmagnitudes gives one
> origin with zero magnitudes.
> http://www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?minmag=5&starttime=2000-06-08T12%3A10%3A00&endtime=2000-06-08T13%3A00%3A00&includeallmagnitudes=no&orderby=time
> 
> This is even true if you pick a particular magnitude type, like this.
> It seems very weird to me to ask for events with a MW >= 5 and have
> the returned xml not include any magnitude information at all.
> Magnitude is just about as fundamental as location or time, and to
> make it be an optional value seems strange.
> 
> http://www.iris.edu/ws/event/query?minmag=5&starttime=2011-06-06T12%3A10%3A00&endtime=2011-06-08T13%3A00%3A00&magtype=MW&preferredonly=yes&includeallmagnitudes=no&orderby=time
> 
> I looked with seismoquery near the 2000-06-08 event and if I am
> reading the output correctly, there are several magnitudes for this
> event in the ISC catalog. I also looked at a couple of other time
> ranges to be sure, but it appears that you either get zero or one
> magnitude depending on the value of includeallmagnitudes. I thought
> that this option was to allow you to choose to either get just the one
> "preferred" magnitude or to get all of them, but if you only ever get
> one then this option seems pointless.
> 
> 2) Similarly, the "preferredonly" option makes it sound like you can
> get either just the preferred origin, or all of the origins for a
> particular event, assuming that grouping information exists. Am I
> misunderstanding the meaning of this? I have tried several time ranges
> and have yet to see an event that had more than just the preferred
> origin.
> 
> 3) What is the effect of not choosing a catalog? I can think of two
> meanings, either "all catalogs" or "only the preferred catalog". Both
> of these seem valid choices, but it is not clear how to enact them.
> 
> 4) Can I specify multiple catalogs? Putting two &catalog= items in the
> URL gives back no events, so I guess not, or maybe it just takes the
> last one.
> 
> thanks,
> Philip
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