3D seismic image processing for faults

Summary Fault surfaces are often represented by triangle or quad meshes, which are more complex than the arrays used to represent seismic images, and are more complex than necessary for subsequent processing tasks, such as that of automatically estimating fault slip vectors. To facilitate image processing for faults, we propose a simpler linked data structure in which each sample of a fault corresponds to exactly one image sample. We also propose a method, using this linked data structure, to extract complete and intersecting fault surfaces without holes. We use the same structure in subsequent processing to estimate fault slip vectors, and to assess the accuracy of estimated slips by unfaulting the seismic images.