12.1. Airborne Data Model Overview#

12.1.1. Core Containers#

The core containers are technology-neutral: NavigationTrack for one flight line’s sample-aligned position, attitude, and elevation; AirborneEMRecord for one sample’s EMTF transfer-function payload plus any auxiliary decoded fields; and AirborneEMLine/ AirborneEMDataset for a line’s, or a survey’s, records keyed by sample ID. See Flight Lines and Datasets for how those four pieces fit together. AirborneSite/ AirborneSites give a flat, Sites- shaped view over the same records, read straight from a directory of EMTF-XML files via ensure_asites() – the airborne counterpart of Site/ Sites; see The Airborne Site View. Around that data model, registry and io govern how a technology or a native file format is recognized and dispatched (Technologies, Formats, and Native I/O), and qc assesses structural completeness and metadata consistency without inventing technology-specific signal thresholds (Structural Quality Control).

12.1.2. Technology Subpackages#

Three technology subpackages map decoded scientific arrays onto this model, each with its own build_*_line/build_*_dataset constructors and a *SystemSpec describing the real instrument’s published characteristics:

  • pycsamt.airborne.afmag – AFMAG (comparator + AirMt), a scalar tilt angle or a \((n_f, 3, 2)\) interstation tensor.

  • pycsamt.airborne.ztem – ZTEM, a tipper, \(H_z = T_{zx}H_x + T_{zy}H_y\).

  • pycsamt.airborne.mobilemt – MobileMT, a \((n_f, 3, 2)\) admittance tensor, \(H = Y E\).

No proprietary vendor archive format is parsed anywhere in pyCSAMT – every subpackage above only maps already-decoded arrays onto the common model. Synthetic sample surveys for all three are committed under data/ZTEM/, data/AFMAG/, and data/mobileMT/, and are used throughout this section’s pages.

12.1.3. Where To Go Next#

This section only covers the data model itself. For the science – reading the sample surveys, computing tilt/divergence/admittance diagnostics, and interpreting the resulting figures – continue with AFMAG Tilt-Angle Diagnostics And Motion-Coupling Physics, ZTEM Total-Divergence, Phase-Rotation, And Map-View Diagnostics, and MobileMT Admittance, Apparent Conductivity, And Skew Diagnostics. For the shared physics linking all three technologies, including why MobileMT’s admittance tensor is a genuinely different object from the other two’s tipper/interstation tensor, see Airborne Natural-Source EM: AFMAG, ZTEM, And MobileMT. For the complete callable reference, see pycsamt.airborne.