Program Settings

As discussed in other sections of this Help System, it is possible to customise the usability of the program, so as to better suit the needs and/or preferences of a particular user. Such facility is available from the Program Settings panel, that can be accessed through Tools > Settings… or through the corresponding toolbar button . The Program Settings panel is subdivided into four tab windows, which provide access to the different type of settings described below. It is noted that changes to such settings will only affect records and spectra loaded after these changes.

General
This separator allows users to define the number of decimal places that the program uses (5 by default), as well as changing the default folders from where original records my be read and generated accelerograms written to. In addition, users may also disable background shading of plots, which may be useful for printing purposes.

Response spectra
Through this panel users can define the dynamic analysis integration parameters, period range, period step and post-yield hardening ratio that will be considered in the computation of the spectra for each accelerogram. Refer to here for further details.

Accelerogram Generation
The spectrum tolerance (i.e. accepted difference between the spectrum of the generated accelerogram and that of the target spectrum, computed as the mean of the absolute values of positive and negative differences) can be modified here, with a default value of 0.1 being originally set (as suggested by e.g. Gomes et al., 2006). Users may also decide if to carry out or not baseline correction in the generation of the artificial accelerograms. By default a quadratic baseline correction is selected (refer to the Help System of SeismoSignal for further details on baseline correction).
In addition, users can also customise the parameters used in the random processes methods (Artificial Accelerogram Generation and Artificial Accelerogram Generation & Adjustment), namely: random process starter, maximum number of iterations, maximum number of different phase angle trials, and the number of points used for Power Spectra Density Function (PSDF) calculation. Typically, however, these parameters need not to be modified.

Units
Here a user will have the option of changing the units in which acceleration, velocity and displacement are to be considered in calculations and displayed in terms of results.
Common to all tab windows are the Program Defaults and Set as Default options found at the bottom of the Program Settings panel. The Set as Default option is employed whenever the user wishes to define new personalised default settings, which will then be used in all new projects subsequently created. The Program Defaults, on the other hand, can be used to reload, at any time, the original program default settings, as defined at installation time.
Note however, that the Program Defaults option does not change the default program settings, it simply loads the installation settings in the current project. Hence, if users have previously personalised the default settings of the program (using the Set as Default option) and then wish to revert the program default settings back to the original installation defaults, they should first load the Program Defaults and then choose the Set as Default option. Note also that changes in the program settings will only be affected records that are loaded after these changes.