Similarities have been the definitive test of vibrator performance for decades. Until Verif-i came on the scene around 20 something years ago, processing of similarities was usually done by the field processing system and before that were sent off crew for processing, meaning that it could be days or even weeks before results were available. With Verif-i's Testif-i software we suddenly had the ability to process sims on the spot and make a decision on whether a vibrator meets performance specs or not. As such, Testif-i quickly became the de facto industry standard.

Although still technically very good, it has not changed much over the last 20 years. It has never been particularly user friendly and the graphical results are very much 'last century'. Nor does it seem that Verif-i have considered the way it is actually used on crews today. Furthermore it is too expensive for a private rep to purchase, especially these days.

I wanted more features than the Verif-i software offered, with better displays at a price I could afford, and so here we have SMSim3.

It is easy to use, quite configurable and can produce 'report grade' graphics.

It handles a variety of file formats:
  • SEGD Versions 2 and 3
  • SEGY IBM and IEEE floating point
  • Sercel Ground Force files
  • Verif-i VFI files from their Sandwich box tester *(Limited- see maunal)
You can produce comparison plots easily
Camera function to display only traces you want to see
A unique feature of SMSim3 is Stored Pilots.
In this mode, you do not compare against the pilot as defined in the file. You create a Pilot file, and always use it instead. The reason for this is that especially with some of the new Low Frequency Custom sweeps used, it is possible that the recorder could accidentally select the wrong one if several have been defined (say for testing).
If they are all the same length, and roughly similar, this mistake can go unnoticed, and in processing sims, if using this incorrect pilot, the sim will look OK, but will in fact be the wrong sweep.
Using a Stored pilot means we can catch a mistake like this as we will be using a trace that is independent of the file.

Other displays include:
  • Mass-Basplate relationship
  • Pilot-Reference QC
  • Extended GF Distortion
  • Tapers and Envelopes
And independent calculations using the Sim accelerometers