high performance computing on graphics processing units: hgpu.org

Seismic horizons indicate change in rock properties and are central in geoscience interpretation. Traditional interpretation systems involve time consuming and repetitive manual volumetric seeding for horizon growing. We present a novel system for rapidly interpreting and visualizing seismic volumetric data. First we extract horizon surface-parts by preprocessing the seismic data. Then during interaction the user can assemble in realtime the horizon parts into horizons. Traditional interpretation systems use gradient-based illumination models in the rendering of the seismic volume and polygon rendering of horizon surfaces. We employ realtime gradient-free forward-scattering in the rendering of seismic volumes yielding results similar to high-quality global illumination. We use an implicit surface representation of horizons allowing for a seamless integration of horizon rendering and volume rendering. We present a collection of novel techniques constituting an interpretation and visualization system highly tailored to seismic data interpretation.