Extraction of depositional systems

Abstract

Surface wrapping is a semi-automatic approach for segmentation of a geobody bounding surface within volumetric data. The approach is metaphorically based upon the concept of collapsing an elastic surface onto a physical object. The desired output of the process is a polygonal mesh that may be stored as data, displayed to the end user, or used in further data processing techniques. This approach has advantages over fully automated segmentation algorithms in that it may be applied to data where the volume to be segmented is not fully imaged, or where a high level of noise is present. This approach is also significantly less time consuming for the human analyst than fully manual segmentation techniques, in that the user need only define an approximate initial bounding surface prior to application of the algorithm which determines a more detailed and accurate bounding surface.