New 3D Seismic Data Formats118 ProMAX® Reference

New 3D Seismic Data Formats

Two new 3D seismic data formats were introduced in

Landmark’s Release 1998.5. These formats are bricked
seismic data and compressed seismic data. Advantages of the
additional formats include improved overall performance for
some workflows, access to both vertical and horizontal views
in a single volume, and the option for better preservation of
the fidelity of 32-bit floating point data than 8-bit .3dv files.
An additional advantage of the compressed data format is a
significant reduction in file size relative to .3dv files.

Applications that read seismic files, including SeisWorks®,

GeoProbe®, StratWorks®, and ProMAX® have been upgraded
to read all of the new formats. Applications and utilities that
have been enhanced to read and/or write the new data
formats include StratAmp®, 3D Batch Control Monitor®,
Zap!®, and PostStack®. The .3dv (3D vertical time-series) and
.3dh (horizontal time-slice) formats are still supported by all
of Landmark’s interpretation applications.

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New 3D Seismic Data Formats119 ProMAX® Reference

Bricked Seismic Data Format

The SeisWorks® Release 1998.5 software introduced a new

seismic trace data file format known as the bricked data
format. In the bricked format file, seismic data is grouped
into three-dimensional “bricks” of data that allows users to
optimize performance along any single dimension or to
normalize performance across several dimensions.

Crossline
Inl
ine

Time/Depth
• Each brick contains data for a user-specified number of
crosslines by inlines. Time or depth makes up the third
dimension.

Advantages of Bricked Seismic Format

Improved Interpretive Workflow Performance

Interpretive workflows that step randomly through a series of

inline, crossline, or arbitrary line views will benefit with the
new bricked file format. In the traditional SeisWorks®
environment, trace data was written in a .3dv file that
optimized display speeds only for the inline direction. As a
result, users have often constructed crossline-oriented files
for use in their crossline views. Neither file could produce fast
arbitrary line views.

Bricked files can be designed to optimize performance for a

particular display orientation similar to .3dv files. However,
bricks can also be created such that they normalize display
performance for a variety of views. Although the performance
of the inline and crossline displays will not be as good as if
they had come from separate inline-optimized or crossline-
optimized volumes respectively (although still quite
acceptable), users will notice substantial improvements in

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New 3D Seismic Data Formats120 ProMAX® Reference

crossline and arbitrary line displays as compared to a .3dv

file.

The improvements in display performance with the bricked

file format are achieved by creating a file that reduces the
number of disk seeks and reads necessary to obtain the
requested data. The file is indexed so that only the data
necessary to construct the desired view is delivered. This also
tends to minimize the amount of network traffic necessary to
deliver the data to the end-users workstation. Crossline and
arbitrary line display performance have been improved with
minimal impact on primary display orientation performance.

Greater Flexibility from a Single Volume

Creating bricks with dimensions designed to normalize the
display time of any vertical seismic view demonstrates best
how bricks can help. The same bricked volume can be used
as a source for inline, crossline, and arbitrary line access. In
the past, some users have chosen to create two volumes
(inline-optimized and crossline-optimized) to get both
acceptable inline and crossline display performance.

Another distinct advantage of the bricked file format is that

any bricked file can be used to construct timeslice views;
separate .3dh files are no longer required. Display
performance for timeslice views from bricked volumes
optimized for inline or crossline or normalized any vertical
view is sufficient for occasional timeslice interpretation (if
doing a lot of timeslice interpretation, Landmark
recommends creating a timeslice-optimized brick file or a
.3dh file).

Better Preservation of Amplitude Values

The float8 and float16 sample formats preserve the amplitude

range of the original data far more accurately than the
current method of clipping and scaling to an 8- or 16-bit
integer value. As these files maintain the original range of
values, you do not set the scaling and clipping values when
constructing the seismic volumes. Since these values are set
for each seismic view in the SeisWorks® interpretation
software, you are not locked into a single clipping or scaling
value. Another advantage is that original amplitudes rather
than the 8-bit value used to construct the color display can
be reported in the Seismic View status area while tracking
with the cursor.

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New 3D Seismic Data Formats121 ProMAX® Reference

Brick Dimensions
Landmark’s PostStack seismic data loaders and the 3D Batch
Control Monitor and Seismic Converter utilities allow users to
create bricked data volumes whose individual brick
dimensions can be designed to suit the end user’s
environment and workflow needs. The brick dimension
selected, along with the order that the bricks are written to
the file, determine the direction of best display performance.

For example, if you work primarily with inlines during

interpretation, you can create a bricked volume that
optimizes inline display by designating a small dimension in
the inline direction. On the other hand, if you work equally
with inlines, crosslines, and arbitrary lines, you can create a
bricked volume where display times for all vertical sections is
normalized. This type of volume would have equal
dimensions in the inline and crossline directions and would
be larger in the time/depth dimension.

Landmark provides four standard choices for creating

bricked volumes (also see the diagram on the next page):
• Inline - optimized for inline displays
• Crossline - optimized for crossline displays
• Horizontal - optimized for timeslice displays
• Any Vertical - display performance is normalized for
any vertical view (good performance for retrieval of lines
(inlines), traces (crosslines), and arbitrary lines).

Each of these choices maps to a set of predefined brick

dimensions, listed below, used to create the appropriate
bricked volume

Dimensions for Default Brick Sizes

Line Trace Time/Depth

Volume Type
dimension dimension dimension

Inline optimized 1 32 32

Crossline optimized 32 1 32

Horizontal optimized 32 32 1

Vertical access normalized 8 8 16

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Schematic Diagram Showing Standard Brick Types

Optimized for Inlines Optimized for Crosslines

Crossline Crossline
In In
lin lin
e e

Time/Depth

Time/Depth
Optimized for Timeslices Normalized for Any Vertical View

Crossline Crossline
In In
lin lin
e e
Time/Depth

Time/Depth

In addition to these 4 choices, an expert option (User

Defined) allows users to create volumes with any brick
dimension. Advanced brick dimensions are three integer
values describing the following:
• number of samples in the crossline dimension
• number of samples in the inline dimension
• time/depth dimension

Bricked Filenames
Bricked files have a .bri extension that is automatically
appended to the file name by the Landmark software. The

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New 3D Seismic Data Formats123 ProMAX® Reference

user-supplied part of the file name can be up to 36

characters long. An example is mig_gulf_32float.bri.

As additional extents are needed, a five digit number is

appended to the basename supplied by the user. For
example, the second extent of a file with the user-defined
name of ‘mig_gulf_32float’ will be mig_gulf_32float00001.bri.
A total of 100,000 extents is allowed for each seismic volume.

An ASCII metadata file that describes the contents of the

bricked file is also created whenever a bricked seismic
volume is created. A .meta extension is appended to the
filename of the first extent
(for example, mig_gulf_32float.bri.meta) and is stored in the
seismic project directories. The file includes fields for
ZSTART, SAMPLE_RATE, and DOMAIN. This file is required
in order for the SeisWorks® interpretation software to
successfully read the bricked file.

Additional comments can be added to the .meta file starting

on the fourth line using any text editor. Be careful to not start
any comments with the same words found in lines 1 through
3 or to change the values associated with those keywords. No
special character is required to indicate your comments. Just
be sure to add your text starting on the fourth line.

Bricked File Output Sample Formats

Bricked seismic data can be created using one of five
different sample formats:
• Float32 — maintains original input sample values using
a 32-bit floating point format.
• Float16 - input samples are converted to 16-bit integers
(-32768 to 32767) on a brick-by-brick basis. The values
for the group of samples within each brick are biased
such that the range is arranged equally about a zero
value. Next, each sample is scaled and stored. Since the
bias and scale factors are stored for each brick as 32-
point floating point numbers, shifting and scaling
are reversible to within the precision of 32-bit floating
point arithmetic. Essentially the full range of the original
32-bit source data is maintained for use within the Seis-
Works® interpretation software.
• Float8 - input samples are converted to 8-bit integers (-
128 to 127) on a brick-by-brick basis. The values for the

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New 3D Seismic Data Formats124 ProMAX® Reference

group of samples within each brick are biased such that

the range is arranged equally about a zero value. Next,
each sample is scaled and stored. Since the bias and
scale factors are stored for each brick as 32-point float-
ing point numbers, shifting and scaling are reversible to
within the precision of 32-bit floating point arithmetic.
Much of the full range of the original 32-bit source data
is maintained for use within the SeisWorks® interpreta-
tion software.
• Int16 — equivalent to the 16-bit .3dv file format. Input
samples are converted to 16-bit integers by clipping the
data to a user-defined range and then scaling these val-
ues to the range -32768 to 32767. Data stored in this
way cannot be restored to the original 32-bit floating
point values.
• Int8 — equivalent to the 8-bit .3dv file format. Input
samples are converted to 8-bit integers by clipping the
data to a user-defined range and then scaling these val-
ues to the range -128 to 127. Data stored in this way
cannot be restored to the original 32-bit floating point
values.

The Free Memory listing is also for the local machine and
indicates the amount of unused physical memory. This is
only an estimate; free memory can vary significantly as the
system uses and reclaims memory from process activity.

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Compressed Seismic Data Format125 ProMAX® Reference

Compressed Seismic Data Format

By providing amplitude-range-preserving compression ratios

of 20-to-1 or greater, the compressed seismic file makes
storage and management of large original and attribute
volumes practical.

Compressed volumes are also bricked; however, the

dimensions are not specifiable. All bricks in compressed
volumes have the dimensions of
8 x 8 x 8 samples. Landmark’s 3D Batch Control Monitor and
Seismic Converter utilities allow users to convert .3dv and
bricked files to compressed volumes. Landmark’s
PostStack/PAL and PostStack Data Loader applications allow
users to output to compressed volumes.

Advantages of Compressed Data Format

Using Landmark’s fully integrated compression tools, users
can achieve higher fidelity files by compressing 32-bit data
than by scaling and clipping that same data to 8-bits integers
while saving disk space. In many cases, it may be
unnecessary to access the original 32-bit floating point data
in order to perform detailed amplitude and attribute analysis
workflows.

The compression algorithm compresses small blocks of the

volume independently. This enables the SeisWorks®
interpretation software to selectively decompress the data
rather than requiring that the entire volume be
decompressed before any data can be accessed. The
algorithm also uses overlapping blocks. During compression,
each sample contributes up to 8 blocks, minimizing blocking
artifacts.

Compressed data can be accessed along inline (line),

crossline (trace), arbitrary lines, and timeslice views as
needed. Alternatively, subsets of these compressed volumes
can be loaded into such 3D applications as OpenVision and
EarthCube, for high-performance visualization and
interpretation.

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Compressed Seismic Data Format126 ProMAX® Reference

Controlling Compression
Compression ratios are not specified directly. Instead, a
fidelity factor is specified by the user when the compressed
volume is created.

The fidelity factor controls the amount of compression by

specifying how closely, on average, the compressed data must
match the original data. The equation for fidelity is

Fidelity = (1 - (RMS Error)/(RMS Signal)) x 100

By specifying fidelity, the RMS (root mean square) is

indirectly indicated. The higher the fidelity, the lower the
RMS Error. The actual fidelity is typically higher (and the
RMS Error is lower) than the specified value. In general,
higher fidelity values (from 1 to 99, where 99 is the highest
amount of fidelity) correspond to lower compression ratios.

Filenames for Compressed Seismic Data

Compressed files have a .cmp extension that is automatically
appended to the file name by the Landmark software. The
user-supplied part of the name can be up to 36 characters
long. An example is mig08_converter_90comp.cmp.

As additional extents are needed, a five digit number is

appended to the basename supplied by the user. For
example, the second extent of a file with the user-defined
name of ‘mig08_converter_90comp’ is
mig08_converter_90comp00001.cmp. A total of 100,000
extents is allowed for each seismic volume.

An ASCII metadata file that describes the contents of the

compressed file is also created whenever a compressed
seismic volume is created. A .meta extension is appended to
the filename of the first extent (for example,
mig_gulf_32float.cmp.meta) and is stored in the seismic
project directories. The file includes fields for ZSTART,
SAMPLE_RATE, and DOMAIN. This file is required in order for
the SeisWorks® interpretation software to successfully read
the compressed data file.

Additional comments can be added to the .meta file starting

on the fourth line using any text editor. Be careful to not start
any comments with the same words found in lines 1 through
3 or to change the values associated with those keywords. No

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Compressed Seismic Data Format127 ProMAX® Reference

special character is required to indicate your comments. Just

be sure to add your text starting on the fourth line.

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 Summary of Landmark’s Seismic Data Formats128 ProMAX® Reference

Summary of Landmark’s Seismic Data Formats

The diagram below summarizes Landmark’s seismic data

formats.

Old Formats New Formats

Data not bricked Data bricked
Specific views accessible All views accessible

.3dv .3dh Bricked Compressed

vertical views Only horizontal views User controls brick size All bricks 8 x 8 x 8
compressed
8-bita 8-bita 8-bit (int8)a
formatc
16-bita 16-bita 16-bit (int16)a
32-bita 32-bita float8b
float32c float32c float16b
float32c

a. data may require scaling and clipping before loading to this format;
data displayed at same scale as stored
b. scale and bias factor determined automatically and stored with data;
data displayed as float32
c. data displayed as float32
d. always returned as float32

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Summary of Landmark’s Seismic Data Formats129 ProMAX® Reference

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