Short note: Enhanced visualization for seismic imaging

Introduction

Stanford Exploration Project is an academic consortium whose primary purpose is to improve the theory and practice of constructing 3-D and 4-D images of the Earth from seismic echo soundings. In Clapp et al. (2008), a new viewer, Hypercube, based on the QT graphics library was introduced. Existing SEP plotting and graphing utilities, while sufficient for basic visualization, have not kept pace with the rapidly changing technological landscape of modern computer hardware, operating systems, and commercial visualization tools.

In response to this issue, I have completely redesigned the existing SEP visualization utilities: Graph, Grey, Wiggle, Contour, Cubeplot, and the Tube utility. The new software is designed to be modular, object-oriented, and extensible. The resulting utility is a tightly-integrated, well-managed, and efficient suite of seismic visualization tools that enable more advanced image creation.

Practical details of the new implementation address common usability issues that have plagued SEPlib users, both within the research group and among our industrial sponsor user-base. Behind the scenes, the code is designed to be object-oriented and easily extended if new plotting features are required. The implementation takes advantage of the Java platform, allowing portable and efficient graphial interfaces.

The new project has tentatively been named JTube, wrapping all visualization utilities into a single front-end interface. Individual plot tools are accessible from the command line or via an interactive interface.

Short note: Enhanced visualization for seismic imaging