FracG - Fault and fracture analysis and meshing software

FracG is a command line Debian GNU/Linux based software that performs analysis of discontinuity data (e.g. faults and fractures). Currently, the framework is only tested for Ubunutu 20.04 LTS. The input is provided as line-vector data in shapefile format. Prior to every analysis FracG will attempt to clean the vector data by removing duplicate entries and correcting flaws in the topology (e.g. merging points within a threshold distance).

The analyses performed by FracG include:

Models of fault length distribution (optional) and principal orientations
Statistical parameters including scan line analysis
Box-counting to obtain fractal dimension
Maps of fault density, intensity, distance to faults
Construction of a georeferenced graph
Graph algorithms applied to the georeferenced graph:
- Betweenness Centrality (optional)
- Minimum Spanning tree
- Shortest path
- Maximum Flow
Classification of faults (orientation, intersection numbers)
Analysis can optionally be extended by including raster data (e.g. DEM):
- Extraction of raster values along faults
- Augmenting the georeferenced graph by using raster data as edge and vertex weights
Generation of 2D conforming meshes of the faults and surrounding rock, suitable for finite element simulations (optional)

Install from Source

FracG is designed for Debian GNU/Linux and requires third-party libraries as outlined below.

First, get the latest GDAL/OGR version, add the PPA to your sources:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntugis/ppa && sudo apt-get update

Now the necessary libraries can be installed from the terminal:

sudo apt-get install \
build-essential \
libgdal-dev \
libboost-all-dev \
liblapack-dev \
libblas-dev \
libgsl-dev \
libgmsh-dev \
libarmadillo-dev

Export the environmental variables for gdal

export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include/gdal
export C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include/gdal

To obtain gmsh visit http://gmsh.info/. Note that gmsh's open cascade engine is used for meshing.

Build

Obtain cmake first.

sudo apt-get install cmake

In the FracG directory, type;

mkdir build \
cd build \
cmake .. \
sudo make install

FracG can now be executed from the command line.

Licence

FracG is copyright (c) Commonwealth Scientifc and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) ABN 41 687 119 230. Except where otherwise indicated, including in the Supplementary Licence, CSIRO grants you a licence to the Software on the terms of the GNU General Public Licence version 3 (GPLv3), distributed at: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

The following additional terms apply under clause 7 of GPLv3 to the licence of the Software that is granted by CSIRO.

Executing FracG

After installation with cmake FracG will be set as a global executable in your environment. In a terminal choose your current directory in which the files you wish to analyse are located and enter the command:

FracG <.shp> <.tif> <.shp>

The arguments are:

(required) path/name of the shapefile containing the faults, including extension
(optional) path/name of the raster-file in GeoTIFF format including extension
(optional) path/name of the point shapefile including extension. This file needs to contain two points that will be used for computing the shortest path and maximum flow between them.

All input files must be in the same coordinate system, which must be a projected coordinate system. Geographic coordinate systems are not supported.

Options

FracG has several parameters that can defined by the user. To see what options are available type:

FracG --help

The optional parameters can be set after the input file(s). They can be given in any order and you can add as many as you want:

FracG <.shp> --option1 <value> --option2 <value>...

Further information about the options can be found here.

Outputs

Information about FracG outputs can be found here.