PSICAT (Paleontological Stratigraphic Interval Construction and Analysis Tool) is a desktop application for capturing Initial Core Description (ICD) data.

Captured description data can be exported in a variety of forms:

• tabular data (Excel)
• diagrams in common vector (PDF, SVG) and raster formats (BMP, JPG, PNG)
• stratigraphic column diagram comprising a user-defined set of core sections

PSICAT is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Pre-built Windows (.exe) and Mac (.app) applications are provided. See the releases page for downloads.

On Linux systems, PSICAT can be built and run from source code using the "For Developers" instructions below. If you'd rather not build from scratch, the Windows build runs on Linux under WINE.

These video tutorials describe basic and more advanced features of PSICAT. Please note: As of version 1.2.0, PSICAT has changed sigificantly. Most notably, several new column types and corresponding schemes have been added. Much of the video tutorial content remains relevant, but portions may be out of date. New video tutorials will be produced when PSICAT 1.2.* features are refined and become more settled. You can always contact the CSD Facility if you need support using PSICAT.

If you're having trouble running PSICAT on a Mac, check this troubleshooting page.

If you're still having trouble, think you've found a bug, or have other questions/comments, please use the feedback form and we'll respond as soon as possible.

PSICAT was originally developed by Josh Reed, in partnership with CHRONOS and ANDRILL.

Since 2014, the CSD Facility has continued maintenance and development of PSICAT.

Getting PSICAT up and running from source code is a little fussy, but it can be done! Please contact the CSD Facility if you need assistance.

The following instructions are for a macOS or Linux environment. Binaries for both Mac and Windows can be built on a Mac or Linux machine.

PSICAT is based on version 0.2 of the Griffon Framework, which is really, really old. Because it's impossible to find in the wild as of October 2021, a complete Griffon 0.2 package has been included in the bootstrap dir.

In order to run under merely-decrepit Java 8 (vs. truly ancient Java 6), make the following tweaks to the scripts in griffon-0.2/scripts:

_GriffonSettings.groovy, lines 51 and 52
Replace .toBoolean() with as Boolean, resulting in:

enableJndi = getPropertyValue("enable.jndi", false) as Boolean
enableProfile = getPropertyValue("griffon.script.profile", false) as Boolean

_GriffonCompile.groovy, line 51
Replace target: '1.5' with target: '1.8'

Now you can build and run against Java 8, hooray!

PSICAT and SchemeEditor are developed in Java 8. Mac (.app) and Windows (.exe) binaries run against a bundled Java 8 runtime. A Mac/Windows Java 8 runtime must be provided by the user. We use the Temurin JDK for development and bundle the JRE with releases.

A Gradle 6.5.1 wrapper is included (gradlew) in the root coretools directory.

Open a Terminal window.

Add the Griffon 0.2 bin directory to your path:
export PATH=$PATH:/griffon-0.2/bin

Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to your JDK 8 Contents/Home directory, adjusting for your JDK 8 path if needed:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/temurin-8.jdk/Contents/Home

Point Gradle to your JDK 8 path: In build.gradle, update the javaHome and javaExecutablesPath vars to reflect your JDK 8 installation.

Required to build standalone applications. Copy your Java 8 Runtime into package/java_runtime/mac and/or package/java_runtime/win as appropriate for your target platform(s).

In the root directory, ./gradlew build to build supporting coretools Java and Groovy libraries.

Copy built coretools libraries and other dependencies to PSICAT dir:
./gradlew tools:PSICAT:copyDeps

Do the same for SchemeEditor:
./gradlew tools:SchemeEditor:copyDeps

Move to the PSICAT directory: cd tools/PSICAT

Build and launch the PSICAT application: griffon run-app

Similarly, for SchemeEditor: cd tools/SchemeEditor

Build and launch the SchemeEditor application: griffon run-app

In build.gradle, set the project.ext.javaRuntimeFile var to your Java 8 runtime's root directory name e.g. for package/java_runtime/mac/jdk8u472-b08-jre, set

project.ext.javaRuntimeFile = 'jdk8u472-b08-jre'

We typically update the verbose Temurin 8 runtime root dir name to 'jre8'. For those building both Mac and Windows applications, we recommend using the same runtime root directory name for both platforms. Otherwise, the name will need to be updated when building for a different platform.

Update the project.ext.macAppSigningCertificate with your App Distribution cert's full name, or - for ad-hoc signing.

Create a distribution-ready package comprising PSICAT, SchemeEditor, and CSD Facility default Lithology, Grain Size, Bedding, Texture, and Feature schemes:
./gradlew packagePSICATMac

The resulting package is created in dist/mac.

Follow the steps in Mac, replacing Mac with Win e.g. ./gradlew packagePSICATWin. The generated PSICAT.exe and SchemeEditor.exe will be found in their respective /dist/win directories.