RP Binning 3D

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RP Binning 3D

 

Description

RP Binning 3D assigns each receiver point in a 3D survey to the nearest node of a regular rectangular bin grid, then updates the receiver coordinates and receiver/line numbers in the output trace headers to reflect the binned positions. This process regularises the receiver geometry so that all subsequent processing steps — stacking, migration, attribute extraction — operate on a consistent, evenly spaced grid rather than on the irregular positions recorded in the field.

The bin grid can be defined manually using starting coordinates, azimuth, and bin spacing, or it can be determined automatically from the input data extent using the Recalculate bin grid by input data custom action. Alternatively, the grid geometry can be imported from an existing bin grid object via the Recalculate bin grid by input bin grid action. A 2D map display shows the original receiver locations, the binned receiver locations, the grid bounding box, and the full inline/crossline net as an interactive quality-check view.

Input data

Input DataItem

The main data container passed through the processing sequence. It carries all data items, including the trace header collection and the optional bin grid, between connected modules.

Input SEG-Y data handle

A handle to an open SEG-Y file associated with the input data stream. This item is not actively used by RP Binning 3D but is passed through unchanged to downstream modules.

Input trace headers

The collection of trace header records for the entire survey. Each record contains source and receiver coordinates, line and station numbers, and trace identification fields. RP Binning 3D reads receiver X/Y coordinates from this collection and writes updated binned coordinates and inline/crossline numbers back to it.

Input gather

An optional seismic gather passed through the module without modification. This item is not used by the binning calculation.

Input stack line

An optional 2D stack line definition passed through without modification. Not used by the binning calculation.

Input crooked line

An optional crooked-line geometry definition passed through without modification. Not used by the binning calculation.

Input bin grid

An existing bin grid object, typically produced by a preceding Binning module. When the Recalculate bin grid by input bin grid action is triggered, this module reads the grid geometry — origin, azimuth, inline and crossline spacing — and copies it into the manual parameter fields so that the RP binning uses the identical grid definition.

Input sorted headers

An optional pre-sorted trace index used for gather-order access. Passed through without modification by this module.

Parameters

Use only live traces

When enabled, only traces flagged as live (trace identification value = 1) are included when computing the data extent used for automatic grid fitting, and only those traces are snapped to the bin grid during execution. Dead traces and dummy traces are excluded from both the bounding-box calculation and the binning step. Default: enabled. Disable this option only if you need dead traces to be assigned bin positions as well.

Grid definition

This group contains the classic grid definition parameters: a starting corner point in map coordinates, the inline azimuth, the first inline and crossline numbers, the total extent of the grid in each direction, and the angle between the inline and crossline axes. These parameters fully describe the affine transformation that maps any X/Y map coordinate to an inline/crossline bin index. When the Recalculate bin grid by input data action is run, all fields in this group are recalculated automatically from the survey extent.

Shift grid to center of bin

When enabled, the entire grid origin is shifted by half a bin in both the inline and crossline directions so that grid node positions fall at bin centres rather than at bin edges. This ensures that the snapped receiver coordinates represent the centre of each cell, which is the conventional choice for post-stack attribute analysis and migration output grids. Default: enabled.

Grid starting point - X coord

The X (easting) coordinate of the grid origin point in the survey coordinate system (metres). This is the anchor from which all inline and crossline positions are measured. Default: 0. In practice, use the Recalculate bin grid by input data action to populate this value automatically from the survey data.

Grid starting point - Y coord

The Y (northing) coordinate of the grid origin point in the survey coordinate system (metres). Together with the X coordinate above, this defines the south-west corner of the grid from which the inline numbering begins. Default: 0.

Inline azimuth

The compass azimuth of the inline direction, measured in degrees. This value controls the orientation of the entire bin grid in map space. Set this to match the dominant acquisition direction of the survey so that inlines run parallel to the shot lines. The automatic recalculation action derives this value from a principal-axis analysis of the receiver distribution.

First inline number

The inline number assigned to the first row of bins, counting from the grid origin. This value is written into the receiver line number field of the output trace headers. Set it to match the inline numbering convention of your project, for example to continue an existing inline sequence from an adjacent survey block.

First crossline number

The crossline number assigned to the first column of bins, counting from the grid origin. This value is written into the receiver station point (SP) field of the output trace headers. Set it to match the crossline numbering convention of your project.

InLine distance

The total length of the bin grid in the inline direction, in metres. This defines how far the grid extends from the origin along the inline azimuth, and therefore the maximum inline range covered. Default: 10000 m. This value is calculated automatically when using the recalculate actions.

Crossline distance

The total length of the bin grid in the crossline direction, in metres. This defines how far the grid extends perpendicular to the inline direction. Default: 10000 m. This value is calculated automatically when using the recalculate actions.

Angle between inline and crossline

The angle between the inline direction and the crossline direction, measured in degrees. For standard orthogonal acquisition this should be 90 degrees (default). Non-orthogonal values can be used for slant or oblique survey geometries where receiver lines are not perpendicular to shot lines. Valid range: -360 to 360 degrees.

Master grid definition

This group defines the bin grid using three corner points picked directly on the 2D map display, providing an alternative and often more intuitive way to define the grid compared to the azimuth-and-distance approach in the Grid definition group. Corner point 1 anchors the grid origin; the inline direction corner point (corner 2) establishes the inline azimuth and length; the crossline direction corner point (corner 3) establishes the crossline azimuth and length. The corner points can be placed interactively on the map view. Extension parameters allow the grid to be padded beyond the data extent by adding extra bins before corner 1 or after the far corner.

First corner point - X coordinate

The X (easting) coordinate of the first corner point of the master grid (metres). This corner serves as the grid anchor from which the inline direction is measured. Default: 0. This value is set automatically by the recalculate actions or by interactive picking on the map.

First corner point - Y coordinate

The Y (northing) coordinate of the first corner point of the master grid (metres). Default: 0.

Inline direction corner point - X coordinate

The X (easting) coordinate of the second corner point, located along the inline direction from corner 1 (metres). The vector from corner 1 to corner 2 defines both the inline azimuth and the inline extent of the master grid rectangle. Default: 0.

Inline direction corner point - Y coordinate

The Y (northing) coordinate of the second corner point, located along the inline direction from corner 1 (metres). Default: 0.

Crossline direction corner point - X coordinate

The X (easting) coordinate of the third corner point, located along the crossline direction from corner 1 (metres). The vector from corner 1 to corner 3 defines both the crossline azimuth and the crossline extent of the master grid rectangle. Default: 0.

Crossline direction corner point - Y coordinate

The Y (northing) coordinate of the third corner point, located along the crossline direction from corner 1 (metres). Default: 0.

Number of Inlines to add before corner point 1

The number of extra inline rows to prepend to the grid before corner point 1, extending the grid in the negative inline direction beyond the data edge. Use this to add margin rows so that receivers near the survey boundary are not clipped. Default: 0.

Number of crosslines to add before corner point 1

The number of extra crossline columns to prepend to the grid before corner point 1, extending the grid in the negative crossline direction beyond the data edge. Use this to add margin columns for survey boundary receivers. Default: 0.

Number of Inlines to add after corner point 4

The number of extra inline rows to append to the grid after the far corner (corner 4), extending the grid in the positive inline direction beyond the data edge. Use this to ensure that receivers at the far edge of the survey are fully covered. Default: 0.

Number of crosslines to add after corner point 4

The number of extra crossline columns to append to the grid after the far corner (corner 4), extending the grid in the positive crossline direction beyond the data edge. Default: 0.

Inline bin spacing

The centre-to-centre distance between adjacent bin nodes along the inline direction, in metres. This determines how finely the receiver positions are quantised along inlines. Typical values match the receiver line interval of the acquisition design — commonly 25 m, 50 m, or 100 m for land 3D surveys. Default: 50 m. Smaller values preserve more spatial resolution but increase the total number of bins and output traces.

Crossline bin spacing

The centre-to-centre distance between adjacent bin nodes along the crossline direction, in metres. This determines how finely the receiver positions are quantised across the inline direction. Typical values match the receiver station interval along the crossline direction. Default: 50 m. This value is used together with Inline bin spacing to set the spatial resolution of the regularised output geometry.

Limit for distance of bingrid

A safety limit on the maximum allowed X or Y coordinate range of the input data, in metres. If the span of receiver coordinates in either axis exceeds this value, the module reports an error before execution begins. This prevents the accidental creation of an unreasonably large bin grid caused by erroneous coordinate outliers in the trace headers. Default: 100000 m. Increase this value only for exceptionally large surveys; consider first checking the trace headers for coordinate errors if this limit is triggered.

Settings

Auto-connection

Controls whether this module automatically connects to the preceding and following modules in the processing sequence when added to a workflow. Enable this option to have the module wired in automatically; disable it if you need to make manual connections.

Execute on { CPU, GPU }

Selects whether this module runs on the CPU or GPU. RP Binning 3D is a geometry-only operation and does not involve large floating-point computations, so CPU execution is typical. GPU execution may be selected when the module is part of a larger GPU-enabled workflow.

Distributed execution

Options for distributing execution across a cluster of processing nodes. When distributed execution is enabled, the workload is split across available compute nodes to accelerate large-survey processing.

Bulk size

The minimum number of gathers processed as a single work unit when running in distributed or multi-threaded mode. Larger bulk sizes reduce scheduling overhead but require more memory per thread. Adjust this value if you observe inefficient CPU utilisation or memory pressure during large-survey runs.

Limit number of threads on nodes

When distributed execution is active, this option caps the number of parallel threads used on each remote compute node. Use this to leave headroom for other processes running on shared nodes, or to control memory usage when processing very large trace collections.

Job suffix

An optional text suffix appended to the job name when submitting work to the distributed processing cluster. Use this to distinguish parallel runs of the same workflow with different parameter sets.

Set custom affinity

Enables manual control over which CPU cores this module is allowed to use. When disabled, the operating system assigns threads to cores automatically. Enable this only when you need to isolate processing to specific cores for benchmarking or resource-management purposes.

Affinity

The CPU core affinity mask, active only when Set custom affinity is enabled. Specifies which physical or logical cores may be used by this module's threads.

Number of threads

The maximum number of parallel processing threads used by this module. For RP Binning 3D, which processes each receiver point independently, increasing the thread count can significantly reduce execution time on surveys with many thousands of receivers. Set to the number of available CPU cores for best throughput.

Skip

When enabled, this module is bypassed and its input data is passed directly to the output without any binning being applied. Use this switch to temporarily disable RP binning during workflow testing without removing the module from the sequence.

Output data

Output DataItem

The main data container passed downstream. It contains the updated trace header collection with binned receiver coordinates and reassigned inline/crossline numbers, ready for subsequent processing modules.

Output SEG-Y data handle

The SEG-Y file handle passed through from the input, unchanged by this module.

Output trace headers

The updated trace header collection. For each receiver point, the X and Y coordinates have been replaced by the coordinates of the nearest bin-grid node, and the receiver line (inline) and station (crossline) numbers have been updated to the corresponding bin index values. All other header fields remain unchanged.

Output gather

The seismic gather passed through from the input without modification.

Output stack line

The stack line definition passed through from the input without modification.

Output crooked line

The crooked-line geometry definition passed through from the input without modification.

Output bin grid

The bin grid object passed through from the input without modification. The RP Binning 3D module does not write a new bin grid to this output slot; it uses the grid defined by the parameter groups above. If you need to propagate a bin grid to downstream modules, connect the input bin grid through this output or use a dedicated Binning module upstream.

Output sorted headers

The sorted trace index passed through from the input without modification.

Information

Graphics

Custom actions

Recalculate bin grid by input data

Analyses the receiver and source positions in the connected input trace headers and automatically computes the optimal bin grid geometry — origin, azimuth, inline/crossline extent — that encloses the entire survey. The result is written into all Grid definition and Master grid definition parameters. Run this action after connecting trace header data and before executing the module to ensure the grid fully covers the acquisition area. Note that the grid azimuth is derived from a principal-axis analysis of the point distribution; verify the result visually in the 2D map view.

Recalculate bin grid by input bin grid

Copies the grid geometry from a bin grid object connected to the Input bin grid data item and populates all Grid definition and Master grid definition parameters accordingly. Use this action when you want the RP binning to use exactly the same grid as a standard CDP binning step performed earlier in the workflow, ensuring that receiver bin positions are consistent with the CDP grid used for stacking and migration.