A new, rapid, automated grid stitching algorithm

Abstract

Regional compilations of gridded geophysical data from disparate individual surveys are playing an ever more important role in resource exploration. A key processing step in such compilations is the merging of overlapping grids to create a single grid. Traditional methods of connecting grids together can produce smooth final products but the process is time-consuming and has difficulty with differences that involve both long and short wavelength errors. A novel, completely automated method addresses several main challenges, such as determining how to select a path along which overlapping grids can be joined. The technique uses Fourier analysis to deconstruct the errors along a suture path, into a sum of functions with different spatial wavelengths, and applies corrections that propagate smoothly into the grids by a distance proportional to the individual wavelengths. The result is an almost seamless grid that minimises distortion from the correction process.