UBC-GIF GIFTOOLS MODELBUILDER

Nicholas Williams
11 November 2025
Copyright (c) 2007-2025 Nicholas Williams & The University of British Columbia
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More than 16 years ago I developed this MATLAB code package as part of my PhD at The University of British Columbia - Geophysical Inversion Facility (UBC-GIF) to solve the problem of how to get geological observations and data into UBC-GIF-style geophysical inversions as constraints. The code was the basis for tools developed during the subsequent mining industry-sponsored UBC-GIF Research Consortiums GIFTools I (2012-2016) and GIFTools II (2017-2018).

The code was only provided to project sponsors at the time, however software tools have evolved substantially since then, and other software packages have replaced many of the functions contained here, such that this code is no longer in active use. The `simpeg` open source framework (https://simpeg.xyz/) also provides many new approaches, options and parameters for constructing and simulating geophysical models that were not considered here. However it may be that some users can find need for some of the functionality provided in this original package, or may wish to adapt some of the approaches for their own use. We therefore provide the source code and user guide in AS-IS condition under the MIT License. 

A valid MATLAB license and installation is required to run the code. As of November 2025, this source code appears to still work in full in MATLAB R2015b. The code was also tested in MATLAB R2022a; many components appear to work, but there are errors associated with some of the GUI elements. These may or may not be easily fixable. Compatibility with other MATLAB versions is currently unknown.

The main entry point to the software is the `buildModel` function in `buildModel.m`. See the provided User Guide for further details on how to use the code. A set of example files are provided in the `example_files` folder. These mostly meaningless synthetic files show all of the required file formats. They were primarily used for testing and verifying the code, since no unit-tests were employed.

If this code is useful, in full, or in part, please cite my PhD Thesis which contains it:
Williams, N. C., 2008, Geologically-constrained UBC–GIF gravity and magnetic inversions with examples from the Agnew-Wiluna greenstone belt, Western Australia: University of British Columbia unpublished PhD thesis, 448 p. https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0052390