Virtual reality for geosciences visualization

Geoscientists have used data visualization as a means of assisting in the difficult task of modeling the subsurface environment. A virtual reality (VR) application is described that not only permits the user to manipulate interpreted geological surfaces or interfaces but also supports the simultaneous manipulation of the three dimensional seismic data from which the interpretations were derived. Two dimensional textures are used to represent vertical slices of migrated seismic data; these slices can be loaded and processed dynamically. An informal evaluation has been performed and results show that VR has significant potential to improve the ability of geoscientists to analyze their data and to collaborate on its interpretation