Edge-preserving smoothing for segmentation of seismic images

Edge-preserving smoothing for segmentation of seismic images

Adam Halpert

Abstract:

In many disciplines, pre-processing images by smoothing is common prior to automatic image segmentation; however, traditional smoothing blurs boundaries and can be counterproductive, especially for seismic images. Here, an edge-preserving smoothing technique based on directional maximum homogeneity is introduced for 3D seismic images, and tested on both synthetic and field data. Edge-preserving smoothing is shown to both decrease the level of noise in an image, and improve the accuracy of automatic segmentation results. In addition, a ``hybrid'' smoothing technique blending traditional and edge-preserving smoothing combines the advantages of each and produces encouraging results.