Image segmentation for tracking salt boundaries

Jesse Lomask and Biondo Biondi

lomask@sep.stanford.edu, biondo@sep.stanford.edu

ABSTRACT

Image segmentation can be used to track salt boundaries when the salt boundary amplitude is greater than any other local reflections. We apply a modified version of the normalized cut image segmentation method to partition seismic images along salt boundaries. In principle our method should work even when the boundaries are not continuous, and conventional horizon tracking algorithms may fail. Our implementation of this method calculates a weight connecting each pixel in the image to each pixel in a local neighborhood. The magnitude of the weight is inversely proportional to the size of the maximum instantaneous amplitude along the shortest path between the two pixels. This method is demonstrated to be effective on two simple models and 2D seismic section.