GLI3D Guide

0.1 Introduction to GLI3D .................................................................................................... 1

2-D PROCESSING ........................................................................................................................ 5
1.1 Reading Data into the Picker Window............................................................................ 6
1.2 Editing the First Breaks................................................................................................. 18
1.3 Setting the Pick Model.................................................................................................. 21
1.4 Automatic Picking......................................................................................................... 24
1.5 Saving the Picks ............................................................................................................ 30
1.6 Reading Data into the Interpreter Window ................................................................... 31
1.7 Creating the Initial Model ............................................................................................. 32
1.8 GLI Inversion................................................................................................................ 39
1.9 Statics Calculation......................................................................................................... 42
1.10 Making a CGM Plot ...................................................................................................... 44
1.11 Tomographic Inversion ................................................................................................. 49
1.12 Saving Files................................................................................................................... 53
1.13 Saving a Project ............................................................................................................ 56
1.14 Exiting GLI3D .............................................................................................................. 56
3-D PROCESSING ...................................................................................................................... 57
2.1 Reading Geometry Data Into The Interpreter Window ................................................ 59
2.2 Creating the Initial Model ............................................................................................. 66
2.3 Saving the Control Points ............................................................................................. 73
2.4 Tomographic Inversion ................................................................................................. 74
2.5 GLI Inversion............................................................................................................... 80
2.6 Statics Calculations ....................................................................................................... 83
2.7 Output Statics Report and Statics File .......................................................................... 86
2.8 Exporting a Tomographic Grid Model to a SEGY File ................................................ 93
2.9 Exiting GLI3D .............................................................................................................. 94
 GLI3D 1

GUIDE TO GLI3D

0.1 Introduction to GLI3D

GLI3D is an interactive UNIX/Motif program designed to pick first break times, generate a
near-surface model, and calculate static corrections for seismic data. UNIX/Motif means that
the program runs on workstations using the UNIX operating system, and uses a graphical
interface called Motif. The goal of the program is to produce a near-surface geological model,
which will be used to calculate statics corrections. In this section we will walk through the main
features of the program by analyzing the datasets that are supplied with your installation.

Start the program by typing:

gli3d <RETURN>

Two windows now appear, as shown below:

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The first window is called the GLI3D INTERPRETER. It is used to analyze the first break picks,
generate a near-surface model, and calculate statics.
The second window is called the GLI3D PICKER. It is used to pick or edit first break times
on seismic data.

You will also see a small pop-up window, which asks you to specify the name of the project that
you want to work on:

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GLI3D requires that data be read into the program before any further steps can the taken. If you
try to click on any button on the vertical menuBar, an error dialogBox will appear to remind you
to open a geometry file, as shown below:

Documentation for all GLI3D menus is provided by means of online help. If you click on the
Help button on one of the GLI3D windows or any of the menus, a pull down menu offers you the
choice of 3 help files:

GLI3D Main documentation of the GLI3D program,

Theory Theoretical description of the various algorithms used by GLI3D,
User Guide The present user guide is a good introduction to the practice of GLI3D.
New Features New features implemented into this new release.

For instance, clicking on GLI3D will post a new window showing you the complete
documentation for the GLI3D program:

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The first page of the Help window shows the Table of Contents. Each item printed in blue
corresponds to a topic within the documentation manual. Selecting one of these topics with the
mouse (say Save) and clicking the left mouse button will cause that section to appear:

Note that the entire documentation manual is available in this manner.

Now, we can start to look at the options in the GLI3D program itself. Some other features of the
application controls will also be explained, as they become visible. The diagrams that follow
show GLI3D running under the Motif window manager, but the operations will work for
whatever manager you are using.

GLI3D may be used to process first break picks from either a 2D line or a 3D survey. In this
guide, we will process a 2D line. The procedure for processing 3D data is the same as for 2D.

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2-D PROCESSING

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1.1 Reading Data into the Picker Window

GLI3D must always have first break pick times in order to determine the near-surface model.
They may be generated within the GLI3D PICKER itself or they may be generated by another
program. If they are generated by another program, they may still be edited within the GLI3D
PICKER module. This section of the guide deals with the GLI3D PICKER.

The first step is to start a new project by clicking on the Start new project button on the
Specify a Project menu:

This will bring up the new project menu. Let's call the new project guide. Fill in the menu as
shown here (using your own directory path):

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Now click on the Ok button, telling the program that the intermediate files and parameters are to
be saved under the name guide. If at any time, you want to stop working on this project, you
could save it, and then restart the program later at the point where you left off. We will cover
this in more detail later in this guide.

GLI3D requires you to provide coordinates for every shot and receiver location in your survey
and first arrival times at some of the traces. You do not need to have a pick time from every
trace, but you should ensure that your picks provide a reasonable sample of the survey. We will
get these picks by picking a seismic dataset within the GLI3D PICKER window. To do this, we
need to read in two files: a geometry file and a SEGY seismic file.

Move your pointer to the File option on the horizontal menuBar of the GLI3D PICKER window
and click the left mouse button. You will see a pullDown menu. Point to Open Files and click.

The Load Geometry selection box then appears:

This dialog is based on a standard Motif widget that allows you to select files from the current
directory or move up and down into other directories. Because this box is complex, we have
included a description of each of the elements on the next few pages. If you are familiar with this
type of selection box, you can skip to the following section.

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Directory and File Mask:

This field contains a complete path and wild card specification used to determine which
files will be listed in the Geometry Files box. For example, if you type:

/home/gli3d/data/*.geo

and press the Filter button, those files in the directory /home/gli3d/data whose
extension is geo will be listed. If you type:

/usr/*

and press the Filter button, all files in the /usr directory will be displayed. Note that
simply changing this field does not automatically cause the Geometry Files box to be
updated. You must press the Filter button.

Directories:

This box contains a list of possible directories. The current directory, which is also
displayed in the Filter field, is at the top of the list with a . after it. For example:

/home/gli3d/data/.

The next name on the list is the current directory followed by ... Highlighting this field
and pressing Filter, or double clicking on this field, will cause the current directory to
move up one level. For example, choosing this item:

/home/gli3d/data/..

will cause the current directory to change to:

/home/gli3d/

All the other items in this box are the subdirectories below the current directory. A
directory can be selecting by highlighting its name and pressing the Filter button.

Geometry Files:

You choose one of the Geometry files by clicking with the mouse. The chosen file then
appears in the Geometry File Selection box. The particular files shown in this box
depend on the setting of the Directory and File Mask box. Depending on the size of the
complete menu box, this and the previous boxes may show sliders, allowing you to scroll
through a list of items.

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GLI3D can accept the geometry and pick data in a variety of formats. One format is our HRS
ASCII format, containing a single text line for each trace in the dataset, describing the x-y
location of the trace, its elevation and the pick time, if it has already been picked.

For more details about this format, you can refer to the INTERPRETER WINDOW section of the
GLI3D documentation. We usually identify a file of this format with the extension geo;
however, this is not necessary.

Notice that the following words appear at the top of the menu:

Geometry File Format to Load:

A second format accepted by GLI3D is called the GLI3D header file. This geometry format is
created by either the interactive or batch version of GLI3D itself. This format is usually
identified by the extension hdr.

Finally, at your site, you may have the ability to read in your own internal format. To see which
formats you can read, press the Specify File Format button. Make sure the choice HRS ASCII
is chosen by clicking on it. Press Ok to return to the Geometry File menu.

The geometry file needed for this guide session is called accept.geo. Select it from the menu as
shown below and click on Ok:

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The Survey Geometry menu now appears.

Ensure that the 2-D and Land toggles have been selected, then click on the Ok button.

The Geometry Parameters menu now appears:

This menu allows you to specify parameters describing the geometry file you have selected. For
the accept.geo file, all of the default parameters are correct, so just click on the Ok button.
GLI3D begins to read the file, and displays a slider bar to show you the progress as the file is
being read.

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Now we need to read in the seismic data. After the geometry has been read, the SEGY File
Selection menu automatically appears:

The seismic data must be pre-stack, shot-ordered seismic data in SEGY format. From the menu
box, select the file accept.sgy and click on Ok.

At this point, the program will start to perform a series of data checks to ensure that the
geometry and seismic files are compatible. In order to proceed, there must be geometry
information for every trace of the seismic dataset. While the checking is going on, a slider bar
will be visible, showing you the progress.

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When the seismic data has been read in, the first shot appears displayed on the screen:

You may want to resize your window to see all of the traces of this shot.

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A number of seismic display options exist within the GLI3D PICKER. First, press the
View/Zoom button. This causes the scales to be multiplied by 2:

You may move the vertical or horizontal scroll bars to see parts of the data that are now hidden.

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You may also change some of the plot characteristics as follows: click on View and then
General on the pullDown menu. The following menu appears:

Note that the trace and time scale values were set by the original defaults and then modified
when the View/Zoom button was pressed. To reset these values, change them as shown below:

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Click on Ok to get a new plot:

You may also display more than one shot at once. Click on the button next to View 2 on the
vertical menuBar. You can now see two shots displayed:

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The first shot in the dataset is Shot 101 and the second is Shot 106. To advance, click on Next
Shot on the vertical menuBar. We have now advanced one shot position, showing Shot 111 at
the top and Shot 106 below:

To control the ordering of the displayed shots, click on Select Shot on the vertical menuBar.
The following menu appears:

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The item called Shot Increment Between Views specifies that when there are three views
visible, they will be ordered with one sequential shot number between each. The item called
Increment for Next/Prev Shot specifies that when the Next Shot button is pushed, all views
will advance by one sequential shot. The bottom of the menu allows you to display any arbitrary
shots in the views. For now, click on Cancel to remove this menu. Then click on the button
next to View 2 on the vertical menuBar to reduce the screen to a single view:

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1.2 Editing the First Breaks

Notice that a series of red tick marks appears on the displayed traces. This is because the first
breaks have already been picked in another program and the pick times have been passed to
GLI3D through the geometry file. We may now wish to edit some of those picks.

To do this, lets position ourselves at a particular shot. Click on Select Shot on the vertical
menuBar, and then set the Shot Displayed for View 1 to 121 as shown here:

Now click on Ok. When Shot 121 is displayed, click on View/Zoom and move the scroll bars to
display the shot as follows:

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Notice that the picks for many of these traces are above the actual first break arrival time. To
repick some of them, we want to experiment with Manual Picking. Click on Pick Data/Manual
on the vertical menuBar. The following menu appears:

Point to the new desired pick location, and click the left mouse button. The pick should move.
Sometimes we wish to completely remove a pick. To do that, point to a pick and click the right
mouse button.

There are several parameters associated with manual picking. A detailed explanation for each of
the parameters can be seen if you press the Help button on this menu. Basically, the menu
defaults say that when the mouse button is clicked, the pick will move to the nearest peak (Snap
to), then move backwards in time (Set Pick At) until it reaches a point whose amplitude is 20%
(Onset Ratio) of the original peak amplitude. The settings on this menu control the behavior of
manual picking. Leave it up while doing your picking.

In addition to editing picks, manual picking may also be used to do the original picking. To see
this, first click on the Action item and set it to Delete. This means that we will now delete a
series of picks. The item called Mode is set to Rubber Band. This means that you select the
picks to delete by drawing a rubber band near them. Position the cursor near the trace whose
offset is 1260. Press the left mouse button and hold it down, while moving the cursor to the left
about 10 traces. Notice that the rubber band appears. Release the mouse button, and you should
see some of the picks disappear.

Now we want to repick the traces that were deleted. Click near the Action item and set it to
Pick. Let's pick a trough. Click on the Snap To item and set it to Trough. Click on the Set
Pick At item and set it to Peak or Trough. This means that the exact trough will be picked
rather than moving back to the onset. The menu should look like this:

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Now pick the missing traces by moving the cursor to the first large trough near offset 1260.
Press the left mouse button and move the cursor to the left, keeping the rubber band close to the
trough on all the traces to be picked. When you let go, the traces will be picked. The data
should look something like this:

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Manual picking is very good for editing individual errors, but if we wish to pick the entire
volume, the best way to do it is to use the automatic picking algorithm. To do this, lets start by
deleting all the current picks. Click on Delete Picks. The following warning message appears:

Click on Ok to delete the picks. Then click on Ok on the Manual Picking menu.

1.3 Setting the Pick Model

Before doing automatic picking, we must first set up a simple guide model that establishes a
window in which to search for the first breaks. This model is also used to flatten the displayed
data, as we will see.

Click on Set Model to get the following menu:

Setting a model is very much like picking the first breaks, except that is usually done very
coarsely. Press View/Unzoom so that you can see the entire shot. Move the cursor to a time of
about 550 ms on the right-most trace. Hold down the left mouse button and move the cursor to
the left about half-way along the spread, keeping the rubber band close to the first breaks.
Release the mouse button and you will see a straight line, which is the guide function for these
traces. Draw several more lines to complete all the offsets as shown:

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We have established the guide function for this shot. How about all the others? Actually, the
program will interpolate the model as necessary. Lets just go down to the last shot on the line
and draw the model there. Click on Select Shot and fill in the menu as shown here:

Note that since we dont know the last field shot number, we can just fill in a large number.
Click on Ok, and the last shot is plotted:

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Note that the extrapolated model is drawn. The fit is not bad, but we can improve it. Redraw the
model just as you did for the other shot. It should look something like this:

Now click on Ok on the Set Model menu. We have established a guide function for every shot
in the dataset by interpolating between two shots near the ends of the line.

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1.4 Automatic Picking

In this section, we will pick all the first breaks in the dataset using the automatic picking
algorithm. Before doing that, let's display the seismic data in flattened mode. First, use the
Select Shot menu to plot Shot 101, and then click on the button next to Flatten On: on the
vertical menuBar to get this plot:

The option under Flatten On: indicates that the seismic has been flattened on the model built in
the previous section. You could also flatten the data on the picks, or on a model built by the
GLI3D INTERPRETER, if this was available.

In this display, the model time that was set up in the last section has been subtracted from each
trace. This allows us to conveniently see more shots on the screen. Click on the buttons next to
View 2 and View 3 on the vertical menuBar:

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Notice that we can see three sequential shots plotted. Click on Next Shot and you will see all
the views advance by one shot. Click on Previous Shot and all the views move back by one
shot.

At this point, we would like to customize the behavior of the View windows. Click on Select
Shot and modify the menu as shown:

By changing the field, Increment For Next/Prev Shot, to 3, we are telling the program that
whenever we push the Next Shot button, all the views should move up by three sequential shots.
This will allow us to move as quickly as possible through the data.

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Click on Ok on the Select Shots menu. Then press Next Shot twice, so that the following shots
are shown on the screen:

We are now ready to do automatic picking. Click on Pick Data/Automatic to get the
Automatic Picking menu:

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The parameters on this menu control the automatic picking algorithm. For a detailed
explanation, press the Help Button on this menu.

Basically, the default parameters tell the program to search a 200 ms window (Search Window)
centered on the model time for each trace. Starting from the top of the window, the program
looks for the first positive peak (Polarity of Pick) that satisfies three conditions:

1. Its amplitude is at least five times larger than the average amplitude of samples before it
(Signal to Noise Ratio).

2. Its amplitude is at least 0.1 times the largest amplitude in the search window (1st Peak).

3. The amplitude of the following peak is also at least 0.1 times the largest amplitude in the
search window (2nd Peak).

To see how well the default parameters work, click on Pick Current Shot(s) to get this plot:

The program has picked only the shots displayed on the screen. This is how you test the
parameters before doing the complete automatic picking run.

Clearly, these parameters havent worked very well. There are numerous picks too deep in the
data. This means that the thresholds are too high. It may also be easier to pick the first trough,
which is stronger. Change the Automatic Picking menu as follows:

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Now click on Pick Current Shot(s) to get this result:

Things have improved quite a bit.

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Now we are ready to pick the entire dataset. Click on the item Shots to Pick. You will see a
separate menu showing you the shots that will be picked. Click on Ok to accept the default,
which is to pick the entire dataset. Now click on Ok on the Automatic Picking menu to start the
full picking process.

While the dataset is being picked, a small pop-up appears showing you the progress the program
is making through the data volume. You should also see a button marked Stop Process. If you
press this button, the picking process will stop at that point. Dont press it, since we want to pick
the entire dataset.

When the pop-up disappears, the dataset has been picked. You may now go through the dataset,
using the Next Shot and Select Shot options, checking how well the traces have been picked.
Any bad traces may be fixed by using the mouse and clicking the left mouse button as described
above.

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1.5 Saving the Picks

Now that the data has been picked, we want to save our results. This takes place in two steps.

First, click on File/Save Picks to get the following menu:

This process creates a new geometry file with the new picks in it. If you fill in the menu as
shown above (with a suitable directory path), you will create a file that is ready to be analyzed
by the GLI3D INTERPRETER. Click on Ok to do that.

The next thing we want to do is save our project. Click on Project/Save on the horizontal
menuBar in the GLI3D INTERPRETER window to get this menu:

When you save the project you are saving all the parameters associated with this session. This
means, for example, that you could stop this session by using the File/Exit command and later
restart at exactly this point. To do that, you would choose the option Reload Existing Project
and then supply the project name.

For now, click on Ok on the Save a Project menu. We are now ready to interpret the first
breaks using the GLI3D INTERPRETER window.

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1.6 Reading Data into the Interpreter Window

Now that we have a set of first break picks, we are ready to analyze these picks and create a
near-surface model. If, in fact, we did not choose to do the picking in the GLI3D PICKER
window, but had picks available from another program, we could start directly at this step, by
loading the geometry and picks into the GLI3D INTERPRETER window with the
File/Open/Geometry option. This method is identical to loading the geometry file into the
GLI3D PICKER window, as in Part 1 of this guide.

We will interpret the first breaks using the GLI3D INTERPRETER window. It looks like this:

You may have to resize or move the GLI3D PICKER window if it is covering the GLI3D
INTERPRETER window.

The GLI3D INTERPRETER window has been divided into two data views. In the top half, you
will see a plot of the pick times for each trace from ten shots, while the bottom shows a plot of
the surface elevations.

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When GLI3D creates the initial cross-section plots, the scales are calculated automatically, so
that all of the data can be seen in each plot. We can change these scales by either resizing the
window or manually setting new scales when the default is not large enough to show details
clearly.

1.7 Creating the Initial Model

The next step is to build the initial model. Since GLI3D is an iterative modeling system, it is
necessary for you to supply an initial geological model before you begin the inversion. If you
had saved a model from an earlier GLI3D run, you could reload it by selecting Open Model from
the File pullDown menu. We will not use this method now, but instead we will create a new
initial model. Begin by clicking on the Initial Model button of the vertical menuBar. The Initial
Model pullDown menu now appears:

Select the Create new Initial Model option. This brings up the Model Parameters menu.

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Change the number of layers, depth smoother, and velocity smoother as shown below:

To see what these parameters mean, press the Help button on this menu.

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When you click on the Ok button, the GLI3D OFFSET window and the Set Control Points
menu appear:

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Since the Set Control Points menu is a child of the OFFSET window, it appears on top of the
OFFSET window. You will need to move the windows so that you can see both. The OFFSET
window displays every pick for each shot that lies within some distance of a center point. The
program selects values for the center and radius automatically, but we can reset them to provide
as many control points as we need. For this dataset, we can build a reasonable initial model with
two control points, so lets increase the range to show more picks on the offset plot.

Click on the Set Range button on the OFFSET window vertical menuBar to show the Offset
Window Range Selection dialogBox. Set the Center of range and Radius of range
parameters as shown below:

Click on the Ok button to redraw the OFFSET window.

There are two different ways that you can enter parameters for your initial model. If you prefer
to use the values in any of the three List boxes in the lower half of the Set Control Points menu,
click on the number that you want to change. Then double click on the Item box above it and
type in the new value. Note that you can change the value under either Intercept Time or
Thickness, and the value in the other box will be updated. Change the value in the First Layer
Velocity field to 610. Note that all velocities and thicknesses should be expressed in units
consistent with the units used in the geometry file.

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The other way to set the model parameters is graphically. Each of the items in the List boxes
refers to a refraction along the base of a layer, and there is a line drawn in the OFFSET window
which corresponds to that refraction. If you want to redraw a line so that it fits the picks, click
on an item in one of the List boxes. The corresponding line in the OFFSET window will turn
red. Move the pointer to a point that would be on the new refraction line. Hold the left mouse
button down and move the pointer to another point on the line. Notice that the rubber band
line is drawn connecting the current position to the starting position. When you are satisfied,
release the mouse button. The new line is drawn, and the values in the List boxes are
recalculated. You do not have to start and end your rubber band lines at the actual breakover
points, because GLI3D will extrapolate the lines as necessary.

When you have entered values for every layer, move to the next control point by clicking on the
Next CtrPts button on the Set Control Points menu. Define the model at this control point in
the same way. To see the calculated model at this point, click on the Redraw button on the Set
Control Points menu.

After performing a series of calculations, the GLI3D INTERPRETER window should now look
something like this:

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The First Breaks view shows the residual error between the actual picks and the picks derived
by ray tracing through the model. The timing line on which each shot is centered represents a
relative zero axis for that shot, and the deviation from the line shows the error. Picks with a
residual error greater than the average error for all traces are highlighted in red. You can see
how the model refractor elevations vary in the Earth Model view, but you cannot see the layer
velocities. We must tell GLI3D to display a Velocity view on the General View Parameters
menu. Click on the View/General option on the horizontal menuBar. When the View
Parameters menu appears, click on the square to the left of Velocity, so that the menu looks like
this:

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After you click on the Ok button, the GLI3D INTERPRETER window will be redrawn with three
views, and it will look similar to this:

The velocity curves in the Velocity view are color coded to correspond to the layers shown in
the Earth Model view.

Since this looks like a reasonable initial guess for GLI3D, we will confirm the initial guess by
pressing Ok on the Set Control Points menu.

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1.8 GLI Inversion

We are now ready to begin the inversion process. The simplest way to do this is to click on the
GLI Inversion button on the vertical menuBar. This will bring up the GLI Inversion
Parameters menu:

As with the previous menus, there are a number of parameters that you may wish to explore
further by pressing the Help button.

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For this dataset, the default parameters produce good results, so you need only press the Ok
button. A clock will pop up to show you how much of the inversion has been finished. If you
look at the window where you started GLI3D, you can also see a report being generated, which
shows the average error for each step of the inversion:

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After the inversion finishes, the GLI3D INTERPRETER window looks something like this:

The small, open squares visible in the First Breaks view indicate picks that were identified as
bad picks by the GLI3D automatic editing, and deleted from the inversion.

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1.9 Statics Calculation

The near-surface geological model is now available for calculating the statics corrections. Click
on the Statics button on the vertical menuBar to display the Calculate Statics menu. You need
to change the values in the Replacement Velocity and Datum Elevation boxes to make the
menu look like this:

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Click on the Ok button, and GLI3D begins to calculate the statics. When the screen is refreshed,
the Statics view has been created, so the GLI3D INTERPRETER window now looks like:

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1.10 Making a CGM Plot

We have completed the inversion of the data and calculated statics, so now we would like to
make a hardcopy plot of the results.

Hardcopy plots in GLI3D are produced as CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) files. In order to
use this option, you must have a plotting system that is able to read and plot CGM files. GLI3D
does not produce the final plot, just the CGM file. The advantage of this system is that the CGM
file can be copied to a variety of machines and plotted with a wide range of plotters.

The Hardcopy command is under the File button on the GLI3D INTERPRETER window. Click
on File/Hardcopy, and the Hardcopy Parameters menu appears:

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This menu lists the general parameters that will be used by all the views when the CGM file is
created. Parameters specific to a view can be changed on the following menus. The default
values correspond to those used to plot each view on the screen. When you are ready to make
the final plot, you will need to know where to find the CGM file, so the OUTPUT CGM FILE
DIRECTORY and the OUTPUT CGM FILE NAME are important parameters.

The GENERATE HARDCOPY section tells GLI3D which views should be used to create the
CGM plot. By default, all views visible on the screen when the Hardcopy button was pressed
will be selected when this menu appears. Note that you cannot select a view from this menu
until it has been displayed on the screen. If you completed every section of this guide, you will
be able to use all four views.

Set this menu to look like the figure by selecting Velocity and changing the Horizontal Scale,
and then press Ok to continue:

The Statics Plot Parameters menu appears:

This menu contains all of the parameters that are specific to the Statics plot. If you are not
familiar with the parameters on this menu, you can press the Help button for a complete
description. Select the scale and attributes that you want to see on your hardcopy plot, then press
Ok.

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46 GLI3D

The Velocity Plot Parameters menu appears:

The menu allows you to set the vertical axis scale for the Velocity plot. Select the scale, then
press Ok.

The First Breaks Plot Parameters menu appears:

This menu contains all of the parameters that are specific to the First Breaks plot. Select the
scale and attributes that you want to see on your hardcopy plot, then press Ok.

January 2007
 GLI3D 47

The Earth Model Plot Parameters menu appears:

This menu contains all of the parameters that are specific to the Earth Model plot. Select the
scale and attributes that you want to see on your hardcopy plot, then press Ok.

January 2007
48 GLI3D

The final CGM menu is mainly a blank screen on which you can write comments that will
appear in the title block of the CGM plot. This menu acts like a simple, interactive text editor, so
you can insert or modify comments by using the keyboard and mouse. You might record your
model and inversion parameters, like this:

When you have completed the COMMENTS menu, click on Ok. GLI3D will then calculate the
size of the plot, based on the scales chosen for each plot. When the confirmation dialog appears,
if you click on Yes, GLI3D will generate the CGM file, and it will also redraw the screen so that
all views show the attributes selected on the PLOT PARAMETER menus.

January 2007
 GLI3D 49

1.11 Tomographic Inversion

We can also try to invert these picks using tomographic inversion. To begin, press Initial
Model/Reset to Initial Model. This will restore the initial guess that you created before running
GLI Inversion.

Note: At this stage, the GLI Model inverted by GLI inversion (Part 8) is LOST! Any static
calculation or static report referring to a GLI Model will be erroneous, referring
indeed to a raw, non-inverted earth model.

Rerunning the GLI inversion on this initial model will recreate the correct GLI Model,
from which correct statics can be calculated again.

When the process Initial Model / Reset to Initial Model has completed, press the TOMO
Inversion button and the Tomography Inversion Parameters menu will appear:

Many of the parameters on this menu are shared with the GLI Inversion Parameters menu. The
most important parameters for tomographic inversion are the ones in the GENERAL
PARAMETERS box. The size of the grid cells used by the tomographic inversion algorithm is
controlled by the values in the fields labelled Horizontal Grid Spacing and Vertical Grid
Spacing. These numbers default to the minimum station spacing calculated from the
coordinates in the geometry file. For now, we will just use the default values, by pressing Ok.

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50 GLI3D

As the inversion begins, another window appears, showing the initial velocity-depth model:

During the inversion process, you will see a slider bar that shows the progress of the inversion.
The velocity-depth plot is also updated following each iteration of the inversion.

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 GLI3D 51

After the inversion is finished, the final velocity-depth plot will look something like this:

January 2007
52 GLI3D

The relative error between the actual first breaks and the modeled breaks will be redrawn in the
First Breaks view of the GLI3D main window, which should now look like this:

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 GLI3D 53

1.12 Saving Files

Before we finish, we should save the results generated by the GLI3D INTERPRETER. GLI3D
allows you to save three output files: Model, Statics and Statics Report. Normally, you would
need to save only the Statics file, but you may occasionally want to save some of the others.

Select the File/Save option on the horizontal menuBar to bring up this menu:

Click on Model to bring up the Save Model File menu:

The Model file is an ASCII file containing all of the parameters used by GLI3D to create the
current near-surface geology model, as well as the complete specification of that model. Saving
the Model file is a good way to preserve a record of how a statics solution was derived. You
might also save this file when you need to quit GLI3D on the workstation, or if you wanted to
continue processing with the batch version.

Enter the Directory Path and the Model File Name, and then click on Ok to save the Model file.
Similarly, we can save the Tomographic model by clicking on File / Save / Model / Tomo
Model.

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54 GLI3D

The next file that can be saved is the Statics file. Click on the File/Save button, then again on
Statics, and the Save Statics File menu appears:

Enter the Directory Path and the Statics File Name, and then click on Ok to save the Statics
file.

The Statics file contains the final output statics produced by GLI3D. Typically, this file will be
customized so that it can be used directly within your processing system.

January 2007
 GLI3D 55

The final file that can be created by GLI3D is the Statics Report file. Click on the
File/Save/Statics Report button to bring up the Save Statics Report File menu:

The Statics Report file contains the thickness and velocity for each layer in the GLI3D model
and the components of the total statics at every shot and receiver location in the survey. The
format of this file may also be customized to include other information. If you have performed a
tomographic inversion and calculated statics from the tomographic model, you will also be able
to save the Tomo Velocity Model file. In this case, since the tomographic model is based on
grid cells rather than layers, there will be no thickness and velocity information in the Statics
Report file.

Enter the Directory Path and the Statics Report File Name, then click on Ok to save the
Statics Report file.

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56 GLI3D

1.13 Saving a Project

We have seen two ways of saving the model results generated by GLI3D: hardcopy plots and
saving the individual files. The third option will be used most often when you want to save your
work so that you can come back to it in a later session of GLI3D. We call this option Saving a
project.

Click on the Project button on the horizontal menuBar. A pullDown menu appears with three
options: Open, Save, and Delete. The Open item is used to reload a project that you want to
continue working with, and the Delete item allows you to delete any project other than the one
that you are working with. For now, click on Save. The following menu appears:

Notice that the Project Name is already set to the name we gave at the beginning of this session.
By saving the project, we can store the geometry and model information generated up to this
point by GLI3D.

Now click on Ok to save this project. This will cause GLI3D to save the current header and
model files, as well as all parameter values. If you exit the program now, when you wanted to
resume, you would choose the Reload existing project button on the Specify a Project dialog
box. You would then find the name

guide

on the menu as one project available to be loaded. By choosing this, you would restore GLI3D to
the state that it was in when you exited.

Note that the GLI3D Statics and Statics Report files are not saved in the project. These files
must be explicitly saved from the File Save menu.

1.14 Exiting GLI3D

The final step in this guide is to stop the program. Click on the File/Exit button. A dialog box
will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to quit. Note that GLI3D does not remind you
to save any output files before exiting. The GLI3D PICKER window, the GLI3D INTERPRETER
window and any other windows created by GLI3D will disappear.

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 GLI3D 57

3-D PROCESSING

January 2007
58 GLI3D

3D PROCESSING

This chapter repeats the sequence of operations performed through the previous chapter, but with
3D data.The technique remains the same, but new displays, mainly maps and cross-sections are
used and deserve detailed explanations.
We will concentrate only on the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, as first break picking within
the GLI3D PICKER window remains identical to the 2D case, see sections 1.1 to 1.5, therefore
we can iconize the GLI3D PICKER window.

Additional Features
Some paragraphs are printed in smaller fonts. They describe some additional features of interest,
however they represent deviations from the main stream of operations and may cause the project results
to deviate from the posted results.
If you opt to stick to posted results, you should save the project before experimenting these additional
features, after what, you should exit and re-enter the program. For the same accuracy reasons, a tester
can bypass these additional features.

This document intends only to guide the user through the various steps necessary to get a final
subsurface model, from which structure statics can be computed. For more details, you are
advised to consult the other available documents:

Help/GLI3D : Main user documentation.

All GLI3D menus are fully described.

Help/Theory : Theory of refraction seismic.

All algorithms are described in-depth.

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 GLI3D 59

2.1 Reading Geometry Data Into The Interpreter Window

Like for the 2D case, we start the program by typing:

gli3d <RETURN>

Two windows appear: the GLI3D INTERPRETER window and the GLI3D PICKER window.
We can immediately iconize the picker window, as we will read the first break times directly
from the geometry file. Most of the 3D projects have the first breaks picked within a standard
seismic package like PROMAX, DISCO,

We want to start a new project called guide3D. Therefore, on the Specify a Project menu, we
click the Start new project bar,

the Start a Project menu appears,

in which you code your desired path, insert guide3D into the Project Name clause
and click OK.

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60 GLI3D

The GLI3D INTERPRETER window is then actualized.

Please remark that all main windows bear the version number, which is the first item that you
should indicate, when e-mailing for support.

We can now load the geometry data by clicking File/Open/Geometry/new in the GLI3D
INTERPRETER window and specify the file neut3d.geo in the Load Geometry menu

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 GLI3D 61

Clicking OK, we specify 3D and Land data on the Survey Geometry menu

Clicking OK, we accept all defaults from the Geometry Parameters menu,

by clicking OK on it. The Geometry Parameters menu allows 2 different shot selection modes,
namely by Field Shot numbers or by sequential numbers. A coordinate restriction and shot
increment allow the user to select a subset of the whole survey in order to reduce the job size
which can easily overflow the machine, if the survey is too large.

Note:
If the geometry file exceeds the 2.1Gb limit, you can cut it into several files, and repeat the same
above procedure for each of them, clicking File/Open/Geometry/new for the first one, but
File/Open/Geometry/append for the remaining ones. When cutting a large geometry file, we
should ensure that each subfile contains entire shots and recode their LINE card accordingly, as
each subfile contains less shots than the original one.

Once the geometry file is loaded, we get two windows and a console listing:

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62 GLI3D

GLI3D INTERPRETER window GLI3D GRID window

The GLI3D GRID window shows a map of all shot and receiver stations, we just input.
The default contour data is the elevation of the survey. The type of contour data can be modified
by a View/General click.

The GLI3D INTERPRETER window displays an elevation cross-section generated along the
white strike line on the GLI3D GRID window.

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 GLI3D 63

Notes:

1. At this stage we have loaded the entire geometry data set, it becomes wise to save our
project by clicking Project/Save, filling the Save a Project menu and clicking Ok
into it.

2. The position or orientation of the strike line can be modified at our convenience.
In the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, click View/General and modify the Cross Section Line on
3D Survey block of the General View Properties menu accordingly.

If you plan to later return to the original cross-section, you are advised to take a hand-written note of
this block, before modifying it.

Let us change Angle of the Line to +90 and click OK.

The interpretation window shows now a North-South cross-section going through the same origin
indicated by the fields X,Y coordinates of Point on the Line.

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64 GLI3D

Clicking on the Select Selection button of the GRID window changes the cursor into a + which enables
you to reposition the NS cross-section at the click location of your choice.

For instance, let us click on the 3 isolated shot stations at (X=700, Y=1200). Through that same origin, we
can now show an oblique cross-section by setting the Angle of the Line to +45.0 degree on the recalled
menu General View Properties

GLI3D INTERPRETER window GLI3D GRID window

3. The above combination of modifications of the General View Properties menu followed by clicks on the
GRID window, can be repeated as often as you wish, at any spot in the project.

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 GLI3D 65

At this stage GLI3D has acquired all the geometry and first break data necessary to build up an
initial earth model which we will invert into a final model from which we can compute the
desired static corrections.

The console listing summarizes the data entry. From it, we confirm that we entered 406 shots at
480 traces/shot, that the shot stations range from 1 to 406 and that we use 528 receivers ranging
from 1 to 528. The survey orientation is also a useful parameter for later consideration.

Before we input an initial earth model, we should now return to the initial East-West cross-section, either
by resetting the General View Properties menu to its original values (Use the above hand-written note)
or by exiting the program and not saving the actual project status.

In the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, click File/Exit and answer YES to the following question menu,
saying that you want to exit without saving the actual project, but rather keep the project as it was before
playing with different cross-sections.

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66 GLI3D

2.2 Creating the Initial Model

Unlike the 2D example, we will create an initial earth model by importing a set of control points
from a text file and modify it by graphically picking some additional control points from the
GLI3D OFFSET window.

Please note that both ways of setting control points, namely picking them from the offset
window or reading them from file are equivalent and completely interchangeable.

Let us create an initial model by clicking Initial Model/Create New Initial Model and get the
Model Parameters menu:

As we want to input a 2-layer earth model from a text file, we code the Model Parameters menu
as shown, click OK on it, select the file 3Dthick.cp from the shown Load Control Point menu,
click OK on it, accept the warning message with OK and get the modified base windows

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 GLI3D 67

GLI3D INTERPRETER and GLI3D GRID with an expanded listing:

GLI3D INTERPRETER window GLI3D GRID window

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68 GLI3D

Notes:

1. Depth Smoother, Velocity Smoother, Smoothing Option should all be adapted to the current
project conditions. The cross-section aspect and the average error reported on the console listing are
indicators of the accuracy of the earth model.

2. The Cubic Patch System is set by default to Rectangular Smoother.

Resetting it to Least Squares Matrix could give a smoother model but at a heavy price: the memory
requirement and the computing time swell considerably. Local Splines are calculated for each depth
patch.
For most cases, you should stick to a Rectangular Smoother, as the price to be paid exceeds the slight
model improvement.

The control points listed by the control point file are now marked by a circle O on the GLI3D
GRID window, as they have been built into the current earth model. The user documentation
gives a detailed description of the control point text file. Press Help/GLI3D and select the section
Initial Model/Create New Initial Model/Read From File/Format .

We can now complete and hopefully improve our model by picking some additional control
points. We click Initial Model/Modify Initial Model and get the Model Parameters menu
again, but now we set the Control Point switch to Picked From Offset Window, click OK.
Replying YES to the question Do you wish to modify or add control Points, the GLI3D
OFFSET window and the associated Set Control Point menu appear:

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Handling Control Points

There exist 2 ways to handle control points: a graphical and a digital way.

Operation Graphical Way Digital Way

1a. Set a new Sweeping through the GRID
control point. window, the cursor changes into a +
surrounded by a range box. A single
click sets a new control point at the
nearest shot location.
Enter a new shot point number into
the Shot box of the CONTROL
POINT list box and focus out of
the Shot box by clicking into
another box, e.g. the First Layer
Velocity box, sets a new control
point at the desired shot point.

OFFSET window and Set Control Point menu are updated accordingly.
The OFFSET window contains all the first breaks belonging to shots
within the range box drawn around the cursor within the GRID window.
The list boxes VELOCITY, INTERCEPT and THICKNESS contain the
default values for the various model layers.

1b. Set to an ------- Click into the desired shot point

existing number within the List item of the
control point. CONTROL POINT list box.

OFFSET window and Set Control Point menu are updated accordingly.

2. Set a new V0. ------- Enter a new value into the field
First Layer Velocity and focus out
of it by clicking into another box,
e.g. the Thickness list box.

OFFSET window and Set Control Point menu are updated accordingly.
See the THICKNESS list box.

3. Refine the rest Select a layer by clicking into one of the list boxes VELOCITY,
of the control INTERCEPT
point. or THICKNESS, usually in increasing layer order 1:, 2:,

Within the OFFSET window, fit the
red line within the appropriate zone
of the first break plot. Click, drag
and release the cursor, selects a pair
(velocity + intercept time) for the
particular layer, the corresponding
thickness is automatically
calculated.
Within the Set Control Point
menu, enter either a desired
velocity,
or a desired thickness,
or a desired intercept into the
Item box of the corresponding list
box and focus out by clicking into
another box.

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70 GLI3D

4. Delete a Within the Set Control Point menu, select the control point by clicking
control point. into the list of the CONTROL POINT list box. Push the button Delete
From List .

5. Accept the Click OK into the Set Control Point menu.

new set of A warning menu may be issued to inform you that some shot depths
control points. penetrate below the first layer. You may click either YES to accept this
situation or CANCEL to refuse it and rework the model especially the
thicknesses and the velocities.
The list of penetrating shots is detailed on the console listing.

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 GLI3D 71

Practice:

All or some of the above operations can be applied in any order. For instance, let us add more control
points.

As the INTERPRETER window posts all shot points lying in the vicinity of the cross-section strike line,
let us pick one of them, e.g. shot point 116 as a new control point.
Following the digital way of step 1a, we enter 116 into the Shot field of the CONTROL POINT list box
and focus out by clicking into the First Layer Velocity field. That bring the shot 116 and its
neighbourhood into the OFFSETwindow and the Set Control Point menu. The white circle O should be
located at around (X=1620, Y=1050) on the GRID window. The First Layer Velocity and the list boxes
VELOCITY, INTERCEPT TIME and THICKNESS are filled with average values from the remaining
control points. Following steps 2 and 3, let us improve these defaults layer by layer, graphically fitting
rubber band lines into the appropriate region of the OFFSET window.
Before proceeding, let us check that all the fitted parameters look reasonable: Do the successive
velocities and thicknesses match with neighbour control points, especially the V0? Do the velocities
monotonically increase? Any unreasonable discontinuity should be repicked or deleted.
Let us now pick graphically some more control points where the control is rather loose. According to
step 1a, let us sweep the + cursor through the GRID window and click a new control point e.g. at
(X=1900,Y=600),
in the vicinity of shot point 60. Like described above, we fit rubber band lines to adjust the layer
parameters.
Let us repeat the same procedure and click at (X=1100,Y=2000) around shot point 195 and adjust
graphically the layer parameters.
We have now added 3 more control points to the set imported from the input file. Let us accept all of
them by clicking OK into the Set Control Point menu and answer YES to the warning menu that may
pop up. The average error posted by the new listing, gives us a measure of the improvement or
deterioration we brought into the new model.

If we decide to keep this new initial model for future inversion, we can save it into a new control point
file, (See next section Saving the Control Points) and possibly save the whole project.

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72 GLI3D

If the average error has sharply increased, the new model should be reworked or abandoned. A good way
to rework would be to save the control points to a text file, which we can inspect, edit and reload to
GLI3D.

Should we abandon the model, we can recreate a new model over it: click Initial Model/Create New
Initial Model and restart this section. You can also exit the project without saving the new model: Click
File/Exit and answer YES to the question

You can restart GLI3D, reload the project and restart this section.

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2.3 Saving the Control Points

At any time within the project, you can save the set of control points to a text file by
clicking File/Save/Control Points into the GLI3D INTERPRETER window and coding
Directory Path, File Name and Paired Item into the Save Control Point menu:

Clicking OK will save the set of control points to a text file. You can scan this file by entering
the command

> more output.cp

or > cat output.cp

The format of the control point file is described within the GLI3D documentation.
Click Help/GLI3D and select the section Initial Model/Create New Initial Model/Read From
File/Specifiy Format .

The Paired Item is the parameter associated to the velocity. Each model layer can be equally
described either by (v , layer thickness), by (v , intercept time) or by (v , layer depth).

Our earth model is now ready to be iterated by the inversion process, such that the computed
propagation times best match the first breaks. Such a best model will be used to compute the
structure statics corrections necessary to flatten a seismic survey before applying any process.

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74 GLI3D

2.4 Tomographic Inversion

Our initial model can be improved by an inversion process.

For each layer, velocity and thickness are modified in such a way that the propagation times for
each trace of each shot provide a best match with the picked first break times.

This same model will be input to both tomographic and GLI inversions.
We handle the tomographic inversion first for a practical reason: the GLI inversion destroys the
initial model, while the tomographic inversion is non-destructive. The earth model is
transformed into a much finer velocity grid model which will be iterated by the tomographic
inversion.

For this user guide test, we ensure that we input the raw initial GLI Model, that we created under
section 2.2: again, we click Initial Model/Create New Initial Model, fill the Model Parameter
and Load Control Points menus accordingly, reading the control points from file 3Dthick.cp .

From the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, we now press the button TOMO Inversion and get the
Tomography Inversion Parameters menu

The presented default parameters are designed to ensure satisfactory results. For more details,
please refer to the section TOMO Inversion of the user documentation Help/GLI3D.
Before starting, let us simply remark:

1. The earth model dimensions are x = 2200m, y = 2200m and z = 184.20m .

With horizontal and vertical constants of 49m, the grid model will have roughly
45 x 45 x 4 cells, which means that the vertical resolution is much coarser than the
horizontal resolution.

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 GLI3D 75

2. We use the cheaper ART algorithm: After each shot propagation, all the visited
grid cells are updated for a best match between travel time and first break and are
ready for the next shot. We repeat this propagation of 406 shots for 3 iterations,
the shot order being random for each iteration. This feature reduces the
probability of divergence of the inversion process.This is why 2 consecutive
tomographic inversions with identical initial models give slightly different results.

We start the inversion process and press OK on the Tomography Inversion Parameters
menu. As this could be a lengthy process, some clocks show you the progress status:

Clock Name Function Extent Duration

Update Model Pick Initial average error. 1 - 406 shots Short

Propagate each shot through the
initial grid model.

Initialize Plot Table Prepare the vertical and horizontal 1- 406 shots Very Short
displays.

Tomo-Inversion Propagate each shot , 3 times iterate 1-1218 iterations Very Long
grid model.

Update Model Pick Propagate each shot through the final

grid model. 1 - 406 shots Short-Long
Remove short wave statics.
Calculate final average error.

Note:
On each clock, you can press STOP PROCESS to stop the inversion, but be warned that
you lose all intermediate results ! It is then safer to have 2 runs of 3 iterations each, than a
single run of 6 iterations.

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After inversion completion, we receive 4 displays and one listing:

GLI3D INTERPRETER window GLI3D GRID window

VELOCITY GRID Vertical Section VELOCITY GRID Horizontal Section

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 GLI3D 77

TOMOGRAPHIC Inversion Listing

Beside the usual GLI3D INTERPRETER and GRID window showing the earth model, we get
vertical and horizontal displays of the velocity grid, which are updated after each iteration, so
that we can monitor the convergence of the tomographic inversion.
The listing also shows the convergence behaviour by printing the convergence rate after each
iteration, which is the average relative change of all grid cells over the entire iteration.
A drop of the convergence rate between iterations indicates a healthy trend towards a stable
minimum. The inversion result is reliable. However a monotonic increase or erratic behaviour of
the convergence rate shows an instability of the inversion process which is unable to converge
towards a reliable solution. Attempting to damp the divergence, GLI3D successively reduces
gain and momentum. If the latter sink to very low values, you are advised to STOP PROCESS,
as you only bring cosmetic changes to the earth model, thus wasting computer time.

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Notes:

1. If you repeat several inversion runs on the same earth model, with identical parameters,
you will get slightly different results, especially different average final errors. This is
caused by the random order with which the shots are propagated. That way a slightly
divergent process may be repeated and have a better chance to converge towards a global
minimum.
2. The VELOCITY and GRID windows can be closed by clicking File/Exit on them.
But we can retrieve them at any time by clicking Display/Tomo Final Velocity or
Display/Grid on the GLI3D INTERPRETER window.
Even the initial velocity grid can be retrieved by clicking Display/Tomo Initial Velocity
in order to assess the efficiency of the tomographic inversion.

We can now Save the Project, as we will need this model later to compute tomo statics.

Suggestions:

You are now advised to play further with the tomographic inversion.

Input the improved GLI model that we created by adding some more control points.

Vary one by one the TOMO parameters:

1. The grid constants must be adapted to the type of earth model.

As the model is usually wider than deep, the vertical grid constant could be set smaller than
the horizontal one.

2. The model depth should be deep enough, ensuring that all ray-paths stay within the model and do
not travel into undefined territory.

3. Like for the input model, the velocity smoothing window improves the stability of the
tomographic inversion.

4. More iterations will not necessarily improve the inverted model.

A normally converging process sees the convergence rate decrease after each iteration. Once the
convergence rate oscillates around a constant value, usually close to 0.0%, gain and momentum
are automatically reduced in order to prevent a possible divergence. Messages like

convergence rate 30 percent

convergence rate 10 percent
convergence rate 1 percent
gain = 0.01 momentum = 0.01
convergence rate 0.01 percent
gain = 0.0001 momentum = 0.0001
......

are issued.

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 GLI3D 79

Once gain and momentum get sharply reduced, the inverted model practically does not change
and the subsequent iterations are a pure waste of computer time, and the present version of GLI3D
does not encourage to stop the process, because you lose the complete tomographic inversion.
For example, it would have been a waste of time to run the following model for more than 3
iterations

So, it is strongly recommended to run the tomographic inversion in several steps of a small
number iterations in between which, you can vary the number of iterations and adjust other
possible parameters.
From the above run, we observe that the entire tomographic inversion improved the RMS error by
only 2.2%, i.e. less than 2 ms, while a very large portion of the error diffused into the Short Wave
component, 58.7 ms --> 9.24 ms. In other words, the above tomographic inversion run failed and
around 6 hours computer time were wasted !

5. Restricting the Offset range can also enhance the stability of the inversion.
6. Varying gain and/or momentum is worth to experiment. A stronger gain may speed up
convergence towards a global (not local) minimum, while a stronger momentum should improve
the stability, but could slow down the convergence.
7. ART algorithm is faster but less stable than the SIRT algorithm.
Click on Help/Theory, to get a detailed description of ART and SIRT, gain and momentum.
8. Consult Help/GLI3D and Help/Theory for detailed descriptions.

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2.5 GLI Inversion

Let us now input the same initial earth model into the GLI inversion, which iterates
successively each layer, velocity and thickness, in such a way that the propagation times for each
trace of each shot provide a best match with the first break times.

To ensure that we enter the initial earth model, let us recreate it by pressing
Initial Model/Reset to Initial Model The average error reported by the console listing
confirms that we reset the initial earth model created under section 2.2 .

The Generalized Linear Inversion GLI operates directly on the layer model to produce a better
inverted layer model, while the tomographic operated on a refined grid model obtained from the
layer model.

From the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, we press GLI Inversion and get the GLI Inversion
Parameters menu

which sets all the GLI inversion parameters, namely the number of iterations and the various
constraints to apply in order to stabilize the inversion process. Let us accept all the defaults and
press OK to start the inversion.

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The resulting console journal shows that the GLI inversion operates according to a hardcoded
scenario. E.g. for a 2 layer model ([V1,D1], [V2,D2], V3), the GLI inversion performs one
preliminary and three main iterations:

Here we can Save the Project to keep our final GLI model, which is the essential tool to
compute the various statics components.

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Notes:

Let us remark that GLI keeps the first layer velocity V0 intact, because it is a fairly well
known or measurable parameter, usually from uphole surveys. It makes sense to respect
the user choice.
The preliminary iteration is only performed to detect bad first picks exceeding a pre-set
error threshold. It is worth to edit them out, as they just cannot fit with our earth model
and will only keep deteriorating it.
We then restart the inversion process with the edited model and perform the desired
number of iterations.
Experience has shown that the first iteration adjusts mainly the thicknesses, while
subsequent iterations adjust alternatively layer thicknesses and underlying velocities.
As a last step, GLI applies a Gauss-Seidel process in order to remove the short wave
statics from the discrepancies between first breaks and computed travel times, i.e. the
error component which cannot be explained by our final earth model, leaving only the
final long wave statics, which is fully compatible with the final model.

Suggestions:

As we used all the defaults parameters, you are now advised to experiment further options which could
improve the quality of the final model.

Restricting the offset range could remove spurious first breaks which usually show up at very
small or very large offsets.

Applying constraints to the variation of thickness or velocity of the various layers could improve
the stability of the inversion process.

Automatic first break editing could be improved by varying the deletion threshold and the number
of preliminary iterations.

Consult Help/GLI3D and Help/Theory for detailed descriptions.

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2.6 Statics Calculations

Our near surface geological model is now ready to calculate the static corrections.
Our goal is to replace the real multi-layer surface, which heavily distorts the raw seismic data, by
an equivalent monolithic but synthetic replacement medium. The calculated static corrections,
also commonly called statics, will move every shot record, and every trace within it, in a surface
consistent manner, so that the near surface distortion is eliminated. The corrected seismic data
will look as if they would have been shot and recorded on a perfectly flat and monolithic rock
slab, like pure granite.

We indeed have two near surface models, a GLI model and a TOMO model which generate
different set of statics. On the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, press the button Statics and get
the Calculate the Statics menu to be set as follows:

- Select a GLI model

- Select Pseudo Datum statics calculation method
- Set Pseudo Datum Elevation at 650 m
- Set Replacement Velocity to 6000 m/s
- Set Datum Elevation at 850 m
- Set Static Option toTotal

We intend to replace the real near surface geology by a synthetic monolithic block
of velocity 6000 m/s, which contains completely the near surface block. That is, the pseudo
datum and datum elevations are set below the lowest (e.g. 650 m), respectively above the highest
point (e.g. 850 m) of the geological model displayed on the GLI3D INTERPRETER window.

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Click OK and the GLI statics are calculated and displayed on the GLI3D INTERPRETER
window.

The associated printout summarizes the used parameters

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Although we requested the Total option, all statics are calculated ready for the statics display
and the subsequent statics report. Selecting a statics option (e.g.Total ), specifies the type of
statics which will be output to a statics file.

We can now Save the Project before playing with some more suggestions.

Suggestions:

Feel free to experiment:

Display various static corrections: Click on View/Statics and select various statics attributes.

Try TOMO model type and check if the TOMO statics have higher frequency content than the GLI
statics. The TOMO short wave component should be smaller than its corresponding GLI short
wave component.

Try different statics calculation methods: Base of Geological or Model Floating Pseudo Datum.

Vary the number of layers to compute the statics.

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2.7 Output Statics Report and Statics File

The statics report is the document that most users input into their seismic processing
package to apply the statics corrections which transform every seismic survey, like if it would
have been shot on perfectly flat and homogeneous surface. The distortion caused by the
heterogeneous near surface layers is thereby eliminated.

The statics report is a detailed table that lists, for each shot and receiver station, all information
needed for further processing like:

Station ID, Uphole Information, Near Surface Model, Elevation Data, Long Wave
Statics, Elevation Correction, Short Wave Statics, and Total Statics

From the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, we press File/Save/Statics Report and indicate the
desired directory path and file name into the following menu

Clicking on GLI Statics, we select the new earth model, we just calculated using GLI inversion,
in order to compute the various statics corrections and list them into a statics report.
We also indicate the path and the file name of the report.

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GLI Statics Report:

Pressing OK, we create the statics report as an editable text file, an abstract of which looks like

Please check the Total and Long Wave static values at a few random shot and receiver
locations:

Long Wave static + Elevation Correction + Short Wave static = Total static

The uphole information, namely Uphole Time or Shot Depth/Replacement Velocity, is included
in the Long wave static. You can also verify that

(D + D2 + L + D N + D pd ) D1 D2 D D pd
UH + + +L+ N + =
1
Long Wave static,
VR 1
V V 2 V N V N +1

where D1 , D2 , K , D N = Thickness of the successive layers 1,2,N

V1 , V2 , K , V N = Velocities of the successive layers 1,2,N
VR = Replacement Velocity
UH = Uphole Time = Shot Depth / VR for shot stations
=0 for receiver stations
D pd = Thickness from base of geological model to pseudo-datum
V N +1 = Sub-weather velocity

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TOMO Statics Report:

In order to get the tomographic statics report, we have to calculate the tomographic statics.
Like we did on the previous section, we press the Statics button of the GLI3D INTERPRETER
window and select the TOMO model within the Calculate the Statics menu

and leave the other parameters unchanged and press OK. The tomographic statics are computed
over the same domain, but now described by a finer grid model than the coarser GLI model.

We can expect the tomographic statics to have higher frequency content than the GLI
conventional one. We can verify that from the statics display of the GLI3D INTERPRETER
window, but also by requesting the statics report.

Again here, you are advised to Save the Project.

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On the GLI3D INTERPRETER window, we press File/Save/Statics Report , indicate

directory path and file name on the Save Statics Report File menu,

but this time we select the TOMO Statics button and indicate path and file name. Pressing OK,
we get a report file, an abstract of which looks like

The tomographic statics report is similar to the GLI statics report, but the layer information is
missing, because we use a grid model which would be far too cumbersome to print.
A comparison with the GLI statics shows that both Long Wave statics are comparable in sign

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90 GLI3D

and magnitude, but the tomographic Short Wave statics are smaller than the GLI one.
The tomographic inversion recuperated a good portion of the Short Wave statics as a high
frequency into the gridded earth model. We have here the proof that the tomographic inversion
worked correctly. As a consequence, the tomographic total statics are smaller than the GLI one,
but contain higher frequencies than the GLI one.

Again here, you are advised to Save the Project.

Statics File:

Any statics component of any model can be output as a text file to be input into any seismic
package to flatten the raw seismic data. The last statics component computed from the
Calculate the Statics menu will be issued to the file. For example, if we want to issue the Long
Wave component of the GLI model, we have to recode the statics menu accordingly. From the
GLI3D INTERPRETER window, we repress the Statics button and recode the Calculate the
Statics menu like

and press OK. That way the Long Wave statics component of the GLI model is calculated.

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In order to issue it, we press File/Save/Statics File ,fill the Save Statics File menu

and press OK. An abstract of the text file longWave.sta looks like

We see that the content of this file matches with the Long Wave component of the GLI statics
report, for shot and receiver stations.
Feel free to output further static components from different model types

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Different Formats:

Several companies requested their own format for statics report, statics file and even for
geometry input data. You can customize GLI3D to these special cases by setting the database
parameter companyCode to an ad-hoc value. The resource file gli3d.PRF can be edited
accordingly

As a default companyCode 99 is used for all demonstration purposes. For example CGG would
set companyCode 4 and get access to its special formats.

It is important to note that once a project is started with a specified companyCode, this
companyCode is stored permanently into the database and cannot be changed. The only way to
change the companyCode is to delete the false project, correct the companyCode and start a new
project.

Other variables like workSize can be set within the resource file gli3d.PRF.

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2.8 Exporting a Tomographic Grid Model to a SEGY File

The grid model obtained from the tomographic inversion is a high definition description of the
earth near surface. This information has more value than just to apply static corrections.

An experienced geophysicist would input it into the the pre-stack depth migration process, the
success of which is highly dependent of the initial conditions, namely the near surface
information. Most of the times, the geophysicist inputs only a table of a few estimated velocities,
but our tomographic grid provide typically 100 x 100 x 10 values, ensuring a much finer
definition of the initial conditions.

To issue the tomographic grid to a SEGY format, we press File/Save/Model/TOMO Model on

the GLI3D INTERPRETER window and fill the Save TOMO Model File menu like

Note that the Z-grid size field cannot exceed 32767, because it is stored as sampling rate
multiplied by 1000.0 into a 2 byte integer header. Therefore we coded 10.0 m. The default 49.0
would be rejected. Coding the SEGY button and indicating path and file name, we press OK and
issue the whole tomographic grid model to a SEGY file, that can easily be read into an AVO
Processing or a STRATA window.

We can Save the Project and exit GLI3D.

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2.9 Exiting GLI3D

The final step in this guide is to exit the program. Click on File/Exit and a dialog box will
appear, asking you to confirm that you want to exit. If there is no essential information to be
saved, the dialog box looks like

Clicking YES, GLI3D exits and both GLI3D INTERPRETER and GLI3D PICKER window close.

However, if you acquired new information or modified some old information, the project is
marked as (unsaved) at the bottom of every window, and, if you press File/Exit, you are warned
that you are about to lose useful information.

Clicking YES, GLI3D exits and you lose the latest unsaved information, and the project will be
reloaded as it was, when you last saved it. This option is often used to drop unsatisfactory results
from your last experiments.

Clicking NO, gives you the chance to save the project by clicking Project/Save, you can then
press again File/Exit and YES.

January 2007