Expressive Visualization and Rapid Interpretation of Seismic Volumes

Abstract

One of the most important resources in the world today is energy. Oil and gas provide two thirds of the world energy consumption, making the world completely dependent on it. Locating and recovering the remaining oil and gas reserves will be of high focus in society until competitive energy sources are found. The search for hydrocarbons is broadly speaking the topic of this thesis. Seismic measurements of the subsurface are collected to discover oil and gas trapped in the ground. Identifying oil and gas in the seismic measurements requires visualization and interpretation. Visualization is needed to present the data for further analysis. Interpretation is performed to identify important structures. Visualization is again required for presenting these structures to the user. This thesis investigates how computer assistance in producing high-quality visualizations and in interpretation can result in expressive visualization and rapid interpretation of seismic volumes. Expressive visualizations represent the seismic data in an easily digestible, intuitive and pedagogic form. This enables rapid interpretation which accelerates the nding of important structures. 3