Calculation of grey level co-occurrence matrix-based seismic attributes in three dimensions

Seismic interpretation can be supported by seismic attribute analysis. Common seismic attributes use mathematical relationships based on the geometry and the physical properties of the subsurface to reveal features of interest. But they are mostly not capable of describing the spatial arrangement of depositional facies or reservoir properties. Textural attributes such as the grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and its derived attributes are able to describe the spatial dependencies of seismic facies. The GLCM – primary used for 2D data – is a measure of how often different combinations of pixel brightness values occur in an image. We present in this paper a workflow for full three-dimensional calculation of GLCM-based seismic attributes that also consider the structural dip of the seismic data. In our GLCM workflow we consider all 13 possible space directions to determine GLCM-based attributes. The developed workflow is applied onto various seismic datasets and the results of GLCM calculation are compared to common seismic attributes such as coherence.