Advanced Multi-Component Ground Motion Processing

Beyond Unidirectional Analysis: Process 2D (X+Y) and 3D (X+Y+Z) Seismic Data with Precision.

SeismoSignal 3D expands the capabilities of the standard SeismoSignal package to handle simultaneous processing of bi-directional and tri-directional ground motion records. It is the specialized solution for engineering seismologists and structural engineers who require orientation-independent intensity measures and complex 3D motion characterization to meet rigorous modern seismic design codes.

Orientation-Independent Intensity Measures (RotDxx)

Modern design codes (such as ASCE 7-22 and ASCE 41-23) require spectral definitions that are independent of the sensor’s recording angle. SeismoSignal 3D automates these complex calculations:

  • RotD Spectra: Calculate the RotD100 (maximum response) and RotD50 (median response) spectra by rotating the horizontal ground motion pairs through all possible non-redundant angles (0 to 180 degrees).

  • Arbitrary Percentile (RotDxx): Go beyond standard measures by computing RotDxx for any user-defined percentile, giving you complete flexibility for performance-based design criteria.

  • Component Maxima: Automatically extract peak ground values (PGA, PGV, PGD) for the RotD100 and RotD00 spectra to determine the maximum credible demand.

3D Motion Characterization & Visualization

Understanding the true path of seismic energy is crucial for complex structures. SeismoSignal 3D provides unique tools to visualize and analyse the spatial distribution of ground motion:

  • 3D Orbits Plots: Visualize the actual trajectory of ground motion in 3D space with interactive Orbit Plots. Analyse the correlation between horizontal and vertical components to identify dominant directions of shaking.

  • Simultaneous Component Processing: Import, baseline correct, and filter all three orthogonal components (North-South, East-West, Vertical) simultaneously, ensuring phase consistency and synchronization across your dataset.

Who Needs SeismoSignal 3D?

SeismoSignal 3D is essential for any professional or researcher who works with real earthquake ground-motion records and needs to extract accurate, engineering-ready seismic parameters.

It is widely used by:

  • Structural Engineers: Engineers performing seismic design, retrofit assessment, nonlinear time-history analysis, or site-specific studies need fully processed, baseline-corrected, and spectrally analysed accelerograms. SeismoSignal 3D provides all required ground-motion parameters — from PGA, PGV and PGD to RotD spectra — in a clean, consistent and exportable format.

  • Seismologists and Seismic Hazard Analysts: Researchers analysing strong-motion data from seismic networks rely on SeismoSignal 3D to process 2D or 3D recordings, apply filtering and baseline correction, compute cumulative metrics (Arias Intensity, CAV), and generate spectra for hazard investigations or academic publications.

  • Geotechnical Engineers: Professionals performing site response analyses, soil-structure interaction studies or liquefaction assessments require reliable multi-component input motions. SeismoSignal 3D ensures that the processed signals are physically meaningful and ready for advanced geotechnical modelling.

  • Engineering Consultants & Design Offices: Consultants preparing seismic assessment reports, performance-based design submissions, or retrofit proposals use SeismoSignal 3D to convert raw accelerograms into standardized sets of plots and tables that can be directly incorporated into project documentation.

  • Government Agencies & Earthquake Networks: Organisations managing strong-motion stations, seismic monitoring programs, or building-code calibration studies need robust tools to process large volumes of accelerograms. SeismoSignal 3D provides the accuracy, repeatability and professional-grade outputs required by official datasets.

  • Universities & Research Institutions: In academic environments, SeismoSignal 3D is widely used for teaching strong-motion processing, and analysing datasets for scientific studies. Its intuitive interface makes it ideal for both high-level research and teaching.

Anyone who needs to transform raw earthquake recordings — especially multi-component accelerograms — into reliable, engineering-quality seismic parameters needs SeismoSignal 3D.

New in v2026

  • Parallel RotD Calculation: Leveraging multi-core processing, the calculation of RotD100, RotD50, and RotDxx spectra is now significantly faster, enabling the rapid processing of massive record suites.

  • Enhanced 3D Orbit Plots: New high-performance visualization engine for smoother, more detailed inspection of 3D trajectories.

  • AI Assistant Integration: Get real-time help with interpreting complex 3D parameters and navigating the software interface.

Key Capabilities

  • Generation of orientation-independent spectra (e.g. RotD100/RotD50) from recorded ground motions for code compliance or performance-based design.

  • Rigorous processing of real earthquake data in 3D — When you have recorded accelerograms (especially 3-component data), SeismoSignal 3D ensures they’re correctly baseline-corrected, filtered, and converted into the full set of parameters needed for engineering analysis, research, or code compliance.
  • Efficiency and repeatability — The visual interface and automation reduce the chance of human error, make the process faster, and enable repeated processing of many records with consistent settings.
  • Integration processed ground motion data into structural modelling, design workflows or retrofit assessments — through export to common tools like Excel or Word.
  • SeismoSignal Feature Set: Includes the baseline correction, filtering, and several of the ground motion parameter calculations of the standard SeismoSignal version.

Ideal For

Completely visual interface. No input or configuration files, programming scripts or any other time-consuming and complex text editing requirements.

Due to its full integration with the Windows environment, SeismoSignal 3D allows for numerical and graphical results to be copied to any Windows application (e.g. MS Excel, MS Word, etc.), noting that the plots characteristics can be fully customised from within the program itself.

Licensing

Try our Earthquake Engineering Software Solutions for free by downloading a one month Trial Version*

Get a Commercial License and unleash the full potential of Seismosoft software and access to premium technical support.

Buy 2-5 SeismoSignal Licenses and get 25% discount or a 35% discount for 6 or more licenses!

Licenses for Academic Use & Discounts

We offer Academic Versions* with no time limitation for Academic Use to users who are currently enrolled with an academic/research institution. If you are interested in receiving an Academic License, please request it by using the registration module at the start-up of the programs.

Students, Academic Staff and/or Universities may benefit from a 10% discount to all full Commercial versions of Seismosoft products and product bundles.

* In Academic/Trial Version, baseline correction and filtering is not allowed within the program, a maximum period equal to 4.00sec and a minimum period step equal to 0.05sec are allowed for spectra.