Illuminating Seismic Stratigraphic Features Using 3D Visualization

Interpreters use a variety of workflows when performing structural interpretation of seismic data and these workflows are fairly easy to turn into procedures that can be followed by other members of the team. Visualization of 3D seismic data enables interpreters to scan volumes and reveal stratigraphic features. Interpreters can choose to work with amplitude volumes, attribute volumes or mixtures of both. The volumes can be datumed relative to the current surface, historical surfaces or flattened horizons. The interpreter can sculpt, vary opacity and vary lighting to give a huge number of potential results. There is no standard result for this process so results vary by interpreter.

Examples of various visualization techniques will be shown. These come from a data set from offshore Indonesia courtesy of Clyde Petroleum. Pitfalls and good practice will be proposed.

The attributes used for display and lighting are important contributors to visualization. Visualizations composed of a blend of Coherency and reflection amplitude have been widely used in fault interpretation. Since coherency also shows discontinuities caused by stratigraphic features such as channel boundaries the same combination of amplitude and coherency is useful to delineate channels. Coherency Cube popularized relief enhanced displays with attributes. Examples of a time slice from an amplitude volume will be compared with the same slice using a combination of coherency and amplitude with lighting.

The vertical reference domain is important to the visualization experience. Examples of flattened volume versus current structure will be shown and compared.

Once stratigraphic features can be viewed they are subject to several tagging techniques that create surfaces or volumes. These results can then be visualized in turn.