GPRGRAVEL

A simple GPR gravel generator

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Table of Contents

1. About
2. Requirements
3. Installation
4. Usage
5. ToDo
6. Cite as & References
7. Changelog

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About

GPRGRAVEL is a set of MATLAB^TM tools to generate grain (gravel) "packings" to be used with 3D FDTD GPR simulation software gprMax. The "packings" are created based on user defined grain size distributions. Please note that GPRGRAVEL creates a "packing" by randomly placing grains at arbitrary positions inside a given container. No gravimetric settlement of the grains is applied.

Basic features:

1. Choose between different grain shapes (Sphere or Ellipsoid)
2. Set a desired porosity and corresponding water and air fractions
3. Let the surface dip into x- or y-direction
4. Place an object (target) into the domain
5. Set a water saturation profile (linear or exponential)
6. etc.

GUI example with a mortar as target	Output volume with grains and target (for visibility reasons water is not shown and domain is cut at the center)

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Requirements

In order to work properly you need to meet the following requirements:

1. The Mathworks MATLAB^TM software development environment (tested with R2019a and newer)
2. The GUI Layout Toolbox (get it from FEX) (required)
3. findjobj (get it from FEX) (required)
4. inpolyhedron (get it from FEX) (required)
5. VoxelSurf (get it from FEX) (optional)

Operating System

I tested it successfully with Windows 10 (64bit) and Matlab R2019a and newer. Always with the latest version of the GUI Layout Toolbox (current version is afaik v2.3.6)

NOTE: So far I did not test anything on Linux or a Mac. If you get it to work on either of the two systems (which it basically should I guess) please let me know.

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Installation

1. It is recommended to install the GUI Layout Toolbox directly into MATLAB^TM via the mltbx-file (but it should also work via the old-school way of adding the toolbox folders to the MATLAB^TM path)
2. To use GPRGRAVEL you just need to place the GPRGRAVEL folder from the git repository on your hard drive and use the start script startGPRGRAVEL (within this script all necessary GPRGRAVEL folders are added to the MATLAB^TM path)

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Usage

1. By executing the start script (see above)

2. Simply type GPRGRAVEL on the MATLAB^TM prompt (make sure the GPRGRAVEL folder is on the MATLAB^TM path)

3. Check the example scripts for the usage of the core functions without the GUI (inside the scripts folder)

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ToDo

In no particular order and without guarantee that it will ever happen :-) :

1. Clean-up (refactoring) of the code base
2. A manual
3. ...

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Cite as

If you use GPRGRAVEL for your research, please cite it as:

Thomas Hiller. (2023, September 05). ThoHiller/gprgravel: v0.1.1 (Version v0.1.1). Zenodo. [https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8148692]

Note: Even though the version number might change due to updates, this DOI is permanent (represents all versions) and always links to the latest version.

References

1. Stadler, S., Schennen, S., Hiller, T. and Igel, J., "Realistic Simulation of GPR for Landmine and IED Detection Including Antenna Models, Soil Dispersion and Heterogeneity", Near Surface Geophysics (submitted), 2023.

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