Volume Co-rendering of Seismic Attributes - a Great Aid to Seismic Interpretation

Traditional three-dimensional seismic interpretation was built on 2D work flows and consisted of interpreting a grid of inlines and crosslines from 3D seismic volumes. Such interpretation does not account for the information that exists in the third direction. Besides, conventional seismic amplitude visualization may not display subtle features such as identification of minor faults and thin sands, for which seismic attributes have been designed to enhance one or more components of seismic amplitude such as phase and structural relationships. Significant efforts in the last few years have shown the advantages of interpretation on time and horizon slices, geobody detection as well as multivolume and multiattribute co-rendering. Beginning with the early methods using directional illumination for enhancing subtle fault edges, followed by methods using false-color image techniques (RGB) for merging spectral components, we discuss with the help of examples the need for visualization of seismic attributes using volume co-rendering, keeping in mind the objectives of integration of data and value addition in interpretation.