This module allows extracting the picked horizons and visualizing them on stack section.
The Extract Horizon module takes one or more pre-picked horizon point sets and maps each horizon onto every trace of the connected seismic gather. For each trace, the module uses fast Kriging spatial interpolation to estimate the horizon arrival time at the trace location based on the surrounding horizon control points. The result is displayed as an overlay of horizon picks on the seismic gather in the vista viewer, allowing the interpreter to verify that the horizons align correctly with the visible reflectors. Multiple horizons in the input collection are processed independently and displayed simultaneously.
Use this module when you want to check the consistency between horizon picks and a seismic stack, or when you need to generate a trace-by-trace horizon time series from a set of spatially distributed pick points. The module belongs to the Interpretation group and supports multi-threaded execution for large datasets.
Gather - IN - connect/reference to the Input gather/stack.
Connect the seismic gather or post-stack section onto which you want to project the horizon picks. The gather must have valid trace header binning information (X/Y coordinates or inline/crossline positions) so that each trace can be matched to a position in the horizon point set. If the trace headers do not contain bin geometry, run the Binning module first.
Input horizons collection - connect/reference to the input horizon collections.
Connect a collection of horizon point sets (GPointVectorItem items). Each item in the collection represents one picked horizon as a set of XYZ points, where Z is the two-way travel time or depth at each pick location. You can include multiple horizons in a single collection — each horizon will be interpolated and displayed independently. The point sets are typically generated by the horizon picking tools or imported from interpretation software.
MaxDist - define the maximum distance to be considered for horizon extraction from the input horizon collections
Sets the maximum lateral search radius (in meters) used by the Kriging interpolator when estimating the horizon time at each trace position. Only horizon control points that lie within this distance from the trace location are used in the interpolation. The default value is 50 m. If a trace has no horizon control points within MaxDist, it is excluded from the output — no pick is assigned to that trace. Increase this value if your horizon picks are sparsely distributed or if you are working with coarser bin spacing. Decrease it to avoid interpolating across large gaps where the horizon is not reliably constrained.
MaxPointCount - specify the maximum number of horizon control points used in the Kriging interpolation for each trace.
Controls how many of the nearest horizon pick points (within MaxDist) are included in the Kriging estimate for each trace. The default value is 100 points. Using more points produces a smoother interpolation that honours the overall trend of the horizon, while using fewer points makes the result more sensitive to local variations. For densely picked horizons with many closely spaced control points, reducing this value can improve performance without significantly affecting accuracy. For sparse horizons, keep this value high to use all available data.
Number of threads - One less than total no of nodes/threads to execute a job in multi-thread mode. Limit number of threads on main machine.
Controls how many CPU threads are used to perform the horizon interpolation in parallel across traces. Increasing the thread count speeds up processing on gathers with large numbers of traces. Set this to match the number of available CPU cores on your workstation, minus one, to leave a core free for the operating system. For small gathers, multi-threading provides little benefit and the default setting is usually sufficient.
Skip - By default, FALSE(Unchecked). This option helps to bypass the module from the workflow.
When checked, this module is bypassed entirely and the input gather passes through unchanged. Use this option to temporarily disable horizon extraction without removing the module from your workflow. By default this option is unchecked (the module is active).
After execution, the module displays the extracted horizon picks overlaid on the input seismic gather in the vista viewer. Each horizon from the input collection is shown as a set of points plotted in trace-versus-time space. This overlay allows you to visually confirm that the interpolated horizon positions correspond to the correct reflectors on the seismic section. Traces that had no horizon control points within the MaxDist search radius are not marked.
There is no additional algorithm background required to use this module. The core operation is a spatial Kriging interpolation: for each trace in the input gather, the module searches for all horizon control points within the MaxDist radius, selects up to MaxPointCount of the nearest ones, and uses fast Kriging to estimate the horizon arrival time at the trace XY position. Traces that fall outside the data coverage of the horizon (no nearby control points) are silently skipped. All horizons in the input collection are processed in sequence using the same interpolation parameters.
Export Horizon - by clicking this action item, the user can export the extracted horizon.
Clicking this action triggers the Export Horizon operation, which writes the extracted horizon pick positions to an output file. This action is available after the module has been executed. Use it to save the interpolated horizon time values for use in downstream interpretation or modeling steps.
YouTube video lesson, click here to open [VIDEO IN PROCESS...]
Yilmaz. O., 1987, Seismic data processing: Society of Exploration Geophysicist
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