Visualizing building's response to an earthqake

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Hi! As I am doing seismic retrofitting of my two-story house, I became curious whether movement of the roof relative to the foundation can be measured and visualized in any way. I came across this excellent visualization of how an 18-story building moved (apparently based on data from Gecko Range High Resolution Strong Motion Accelerograph):

https://www.src.com.au/visualising-a-buildings-response-to-earthquake/

Now I am wondering: if place two RS4D units, one in the attic and one on the foundation’s floor, would I be able to use data from EHE and EHN channels to create something like the visualization above? (I realize there will be a lot to learn about visualization, but perhaps there are some reasons, obvious to the experts, why this is a silly idea. I am set on buying one RS4D, but perhaps two would be even better? :slight_smile: )

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Hi dcal

You want to do something that is usually done to observe the response of a structure when subjected to an earthquake.
With the RS4D it can be done by placing 2 units as you say but graphing the accelerometer channels (ENE or ENN). EHZ channels become saturated during an earthquake.
The most important thing to do is that the roof unit and the foundation unit are synchronized in time.

Alejandro

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Alejandro - thank you for the explanation! It makes sense to ensure time synchronization, I’ll get NTP working on the two units. I am glad my idea is not obviously a bad one. Cheers!

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