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  • An application tailored specifically to the needs of the subsurface domain.

  • Read and visualize seismic SEG-Y files in 2D or 3D.

  • Read and visualize log data like LAS and AGS

  • View data served by Geocap's Seismic Server, including seismics, wells, horizons

  • A built-in 2D/3D viewer specially made to view subsurface data

Requirements

  • ArcGIS Pro 2.8 or later

  • A modern PC capable of running 3D graphics as required by ArcGIS Pro. Please consult the official requirements for ArcGIS Pro.

Acquiring the Ground Model Add-In

Please contact Geocap for information on how to get the Ground Model Add-In, or visit the Geocap web page

Installation

Note to users of the GM prior to version 0.5.8 : Please close existing Geocap windows in the project and then save the project before proceeding.

The Ground Model product consists of two components:

  • The ArcGIS Pro Add-In

  • The toolbox - a collection of GP tools.

Installing the Add-in

To install the Add-In perform one of these actions:

  • Double-click on the Add-In file with the .esriAddInX and continue with the install

  • or

  • Place the Add-In file folder that you have assigned as an Add-In folder for Pro. To manage this open ArcGIS Pro and go to Project -> Add-In Manager -> Options and add the directory.

Installing the toolbox

To install the toolbox:

  1. Unzip the toolbox.

  2. In ArcGIS Pro open the Catalog pane.

  3. In the Toolboxes item right-click and select Add Toolbox.

  4. Select the file Ground Model.pyt in the unzipped toolbox folder.

To verify the install:

  1. Locate the Geocap toolbar along the top edge of the application. Click to open.

  2. Click New Geocap Scene to open a new Geocap viewer window.

  3. In the Geocap toolbar click Add Data then click Add data from URL

  4. In the dialog enter the url https://geocap.geodata.no/arcgis/sharing/servers/4a8bb17c1e9e49918be96061e35c5bf5/rest/services/seismicportal/MapServer/6

  5. In the Geocap toolbar click the Contents button to view the table of contents.

  6. Expand the toplevel layer item and check all items

  7. The 3D seismic volume should appear in the Geocap viewer.

Loading and viewing data

The following section will go through the steps for loading and viewing data supported by the GM Add-in. Most methods require a Geocap viewer to be opened:

To open a new Geocap viewer:

  1. Open the Ground Model toolbar.

  2. Open and activate (select) a map. The Geocap viewers will be attached to this map.

  3. Click the New Viewer button

  4. or

  5. The Geocap viewer will appear. The viewer tab will be named after the map to which they belong.

A map may have at most Geocap one viewer. A viewer can contain windows for 2D, 3D and logs. You may create any number of maps in Pro, each of which can have one Geocap window attached. Closing the map will close the associated viewer.

Seismics

The GM supports the reading of SEG-Y 2D files using the tool SEG-Y Reader. This tool will create a feature class with each feature corresponding to the survey navigation. Samples, if read, will be created as separate raster files. The feature class will contain a field called url that contains the path to these rasters. The default location is within the same geodatabase in which the navigation is created.

Scanning seismics

Before performing a full import it can be a good idea to scan the seismic SEG-Y file to learn its properties. Some of these properties will be transferred to the SEG-Y import tool.

The scanner allows you to:

  • Visually inspect the file headers for useful metadata

  • Inspect any trace header to learn properties like byte positions to be set during import

  • Preview the navigation in the map directly from the SEG-Y file

To open the SEG-Y scanner:

  1. In the Ground Model toolbar, click the button SEG-Y Scanner. The scanner window will open.

  2. In the scanner window click Browse to select the SEG-Y file. Although the import tool only supports 2D seismics the scanner supports both 2D and 3D seismics.

  3. The File Headers tab in the scanner window will show the contents of the textual and binary headers. Click a row in the binary header table to view any extended information for that entry.

  4. The Trace Header tab show the contents of the trace headers. A SEG-Y file is mostly comprised of so-called traces, where a trace contains a header along with sample data. The current version of the scanner does not support viewing sample data.

  5. To see extended information for a trace header click on the corresponding row in the trace header table on the left.

  6. Use the play-button to navigate trace-by-trace in the file. The trace table on the right will show trace header values for several traces at once, whereas the trace header table on the left will only show the current trace.

  7. To select which headers to display in the trace table check or uncheck the corresponding field in the trace header table. The corresponding column will appear or disappear in the trace table on the right.

  8. The Apply Scalars button will, when checked, apply a scalar multiplication to some of the fields in the trace header. This is for display purposes only, but gives an indication of the final values that will be used during import. The scalar itself is a number that is used as a multiplier (> 1) or divisor (< -1) to a header value to arrive at the final value. Examples of scalar are

    • Coordinate scalar

    • Elevation scalar

    • Shotpoint scalar

The scanner makes it possible to preview the seismic navigation in the map before performing a full import. Visually verifying that the navigation ends up in the right place can be a useful QC tool. The preview works by reading the navigation coordinates directly from the SEG-Y file and displaying them in the map.

To preview the navigation:

  1. Click the Map Preview tab

  2. Choose the coordinate system that applies to the SEG-Y file.

  3. Choose a target map. Note that the map must be activated before it is displayed in the pulldown meny.

  4. When choosing coordinate byte positions the trace header table should give you a good indication of which to apply.

  5. Click the View button. The navigation will appear in the target map.

Loading seismics

  1. In the Ground Model toolbox double-click the SEG-Y Reader tool.

  2. To view the built-in tool documentation click the ? button. This will provide explanations for the various input fields.

  3. Select the SEG-Y file(s) to be read. Currently only 2D is supported.

  4. Most SEG-Y files have EBCDIC headers and have big-endian byte order. If unsure, leave these to their default values.

  5. The standard shotpoint position is set to 17. Technically this could be any location in the file that contains a numerically increasing value. If the shotpoint values are missing from the file, consider using the trace numbering positions 1 or 5 instead.

  6. Common byte positions for the (X, Y) coordinates are (181, 185) or (73, 77).

  7. Click Run to execute the tool. Note that reading many SEG-Y files may take a while.

  8. When finished the new feature class should appear.

Viewing seismics

Once a SEG-Y file has been read and converted to a feature class the associated amplitudes can be viewed in the Geocap viewer.

To view the seismics from the map:

  1. Add the feature class with the navigation to the 2D map. You can do this by simply drag-and-drop from the Catalog.

  2. Create a Geocap viewer if none already exists.

  3. In the Geocap toolbar click the Select button in either the Scene or Cross section group. A Scene select will make the data appear in the 3D viewer only, while using Select in the Cross section group will also make the seismics appear in the 2D viewer.

  4. Click the seismic navigation line in the map. The select line should highlight. The data will appear after a few seconds.

  5. In the Geocap toolbar click the Contents button to open the Geocap TOC. Check or uncheck the seismic items

  6. Right-click the seismic TOC items to view more settings

View seismic data by drag and drop:

  1. Create a new Geocap viewer window or select an existing one.

  2. In the ArcGIS Pro Catalog or Map table-of-contents, navigate to the seismic feature class

  3. Drag and drop the seismic feature class onto the Geocap viewer.

  4. Open the Geocap Table of Contents (TOC) by cliking Contents in the Geocap toolbar.

  5. In the Geocap toolbar click the Contents button to open the Geocap TOC. Check or uncheck the seismic items

  6. Right-click the seismic TOC items to view more settings

View seismic data by Add Data:

  1. Click the Add Data button in the Geocap toolbar.

  2. Select Add Local Data and browse to select the seismic feature class. Note that you must change the lower-right type selector in the browse dialog to Feature Classes. Click OK

  3. Open the Geocap Table of Contents (TOC) by cliking Contents in the Geocap toolbar.

  4. Expand the layer-level node and check the feature item corresponding to the seismic line.

  5. The seismic line should appear in the Geocap viewer. You may need to right-click the seismic item and click Zoom.

  6. Right-click the TOC item for the seismic line to access more settings.

AGS Files

AGS is a logfile standard maintained by the AGS. The GM Add-in supports reading and visualizing AGS files. The AGS format is tabular in nature and lends itself easily to transformation into ArcGIS tables and feature classes.

Loading AGS

To read an AGS file:

  1. In the GM toolbox double click the tool AGS Reader

  2. Select the AGS file to read and the target geodatabase.

  3. Click Run. The reader will create feature classes and tables corresponding to each AGS category (LOCA, GEOL, etc)

The categories in the AGS file that have a meaningful spatial interpretation will be converted to feature classes. Some categories like PROJ, ABBR, and DICT contain metadata and will instead be converted to plain tables.

The most important feature class is the LCOA feature class. This feature class contains the locations of the boreholes. AGS files may or may not contain interpretations.

The feature classes are of type (X, Y, Z) point with each measure point being a feature, or row. The AGS columns are mapped to columns in the feature class.

Viewing AGS files

To view the AGS feature classes in the native 2D/3D viewers of ArcGIS Pro just drag and drop the tables onto the target viewer window. In the Pro 3D scene viewer you may also use the built-in attribute labelling capabilities of ArcGIS Pro to view the log attributes for each measure point.

...

To view the AGS data in the Geocap viewer follow these steps:

  1. In the ArcGIS Pro Catalog, locate the LOCA feature class in the AGS. This is the feature class that ends with the word LOCA

  2. Drag-and-drop the LOCA feature class onto the Geocap viewer

  3. Open the Geocap Table-of-contents by clicking the Contents button in the Geocap toolbar.

  4. Expand the borehole items and check the survey type of interest (CPT, HDPH, etc.). Make sure the parent items are checked too. The log data should appear in the Geocap viewer. You may right-click any item and click Zoom To to position the element in the viewer

  5. Right-click the item representing the log data, like CPT. Click Settings. The settings menu will appear.

  6. In the settings menu click the Symbology Size Attribute to select which log class to view.

...

You can also view the individual log curves in the dedicated log curve viewer:

  1. Follow the steps above to drag-and-drop the log data into the viewer and bring the logs into the TOC.

  2. In the TOC locate the borehole of interest.

  3. Right-click the borehole item and click View Logs. The log curve viewer will appear.

...

Z-referencing the AGS files

AGS files are usually zero-referenced with respect to the top of the borehole. During import the Z coordinate of the geometry will inherit this depth. This Z value is generally not the correct elevation with respect to the datum of the global coordinate system usually assigned to your other datasets. This means that if you attempt to display the log curves along with other data the zero-referenced Z values of the AGS measurements will be wrong. It is therefore important that this is adjusted before attempting to align the AGS logs with other, global datasets.

Performing a Z-adjument applies to the Z coordinate of the geometry in the feature classes, not the DEPTH measurement values in the AGS tables. The DEPTH should not be changed and will still be referenced relative to the borehole.

Correcting the Z coordinates of the geometry to a global datum is simply a matter of shifting the elevation up or down. Geocap and ArcGIS has the vertical Z axis with positive direction upwards.

There are several ways to adjust the Z coordinate:

  1. The AGS reader will honor the GL (ground level) column in the LOCA table. If this is set correctly chances are that no further action needs to take place. To confirm this you should view the AGS logs along with other datasets with known elevation in order to perform a comparison.

  2. Use ArcPy to traverse the feature classes and adjust the Z values. This requires knowledge of ArcPy and you also have to know the Z-shift to apply.

  3. Use the tool Adjust AGS depth. This is included in the Ground Model toolbox and lets you adjust the Z value relative to a surface that represents the elevation of the borehole. This will typically be an elevation model like the surface of the earth. Again, confirm your adjustment by display both the surface and the AGS logs in 3D and visually confirm that they are aligned.

LAS Files

The GM Add-in supports reading and viewing log files in that LAS format (Log ASCII Standard).

Reading LAS files

To read LAS files:

  1. Open the GM toolbox and double-click the tool LAS Log Reader.

  2. Select the LAS file to read and the location of the borehole. Tip : The LAS header will sometimes provide information on this.

  3. Select the target geodatabase.

  4. Click Run

The tool will create a (X, Y, Z) point feature class with the log measurements as well as a table with the metadata corresponding to the header section in the LAS file.

Viewing LAS files

The LAS feature class can be viewed either in the ArcGIS Pro 2D window or 3D scene viewer. To view the LAS data in the Geocap viewer use the methods described in the Features section below.

Features and rasters

The Geocap viewer supports the viewing of built-in ArcGIS datatypes like features and rasters.

If not done so already, create a Geocap viewer by clicking New Viewer in the Geocap toolbar.

View by drag-and-drop:

  1. In the ArcGIS Pro Catalog or Table of Contents locate the dataset that you wish to view.

  2. Drag-and-drop the data onto the Geocap viewer window.

  3. In the Geocap toolbar click Contents to view the Geocap table of contents.

  4. Check the item for the data you just added. You may wish to right-click and select Zoom to Data as well.

  5. The data should appear in the window.

To view by browsing from Catalog:

  1. In the Geocap toolbar click the Add Data button.

  2. In the browser dialog, select the correct filter in the lower-right filter. For rasters you should select Rasters.

  3. Locate the data that you wish to view and click OK.

  4. In the Geocap toolbar click Contents to open the table of contents.

  5. In the TOC, check the item for the data you just added.

  6. The data will appear in the viewer. You may wish to right-click the TOC item and click Zoom To.

Options for viewing features and rasters

For both features and rasters you can right-click on the corresponding TOC item and click Settings. This will provide you with further viewing options.

Perform buffer clipping

Buffer based clipping is an operation that uses a buffer to clip elements in a map to retain only the parts inside the buffer. The Geocap Ground Model module supports buffer clipping based on a buffer around a seismic 2D line. The seismic line along with the clipped data can be viewed in the 2D viewer, where the data inside the buffer will be projected onto the seismic line.

To perform buffer clipping:

  1. Display a seismic 2D line as described above.

  2. In the Cross Section group in the toolbar enter the buffer distance and click the Buffer button. A buffer will be drawn around the select seismic line. You may redraw the buffer for adjustments.

  3. To perform the clipping click the Clip button. Any elements of geometric type point inside the buffer will be displayed in the viewer and projected onto the seismic 2D line.

  4. Selecting a new seismic line will erase the contents of the viewer.

Creating ArcGIS Pro scenes

This section describes how to create a scene in ArcGIS Pro local scene viewer containing seismics and multiple surfaces.

The initial challenge is that ArcGIS Pro does not support the display of seismic data natively, and also stacking multiple rasters vertically is not fully supported.

To enable ArcGIS to display these data types the GM contains tools to convert seismics and rasters to the wavefront .OBJ format. This is a common format supported by many 3D modelling packages including ArcGIS Pro. These OBJ files in turn may be imported using built-in ArcGIS tools to create multipatch data. Multipatch data allows for viewing cross sections and stacked surfaces in a similar manner as with the original data.

The following sections describe how to perform the OBJ export/import sequence.

Exporting seismics to .OBJ

  1. Import the SEG-Y files using the methods described earlier in this document. This will give you seismic feature classes.

  2. In the GM toolbox open the tool Export Seismic to OBJ

  3. Enter the required parameters (click ? for built-in tool documentation)

  4. The tool will take selection into account - if you have selected a subset of the seismic features only these will be exported.

  5. Click Run. Execution may take a while, depending on the size of the data.

Exporting rasters to .OBJ

This is similar to exporting seismics:

  1. In the GM toolbox open the tool Export Raster to OBJ

  2. Enter the required parameters.

  3. Click Run.

The seismic you want to export has to be imported as feature class using the Geocap Ground Model tool: “SEG-Y Reader” first. The tool used to export the seismic to .obj is called “Export Seismic to OBJ export”. In this tool you can set the seismic feature class you want to export. The tool will take selection into account so if the layer has several lines in one feature class, and you just want to export a particular line, you can select the line you want to export before you execute the tool. Here you also set the output folder where the exported files will be stored.

If you later want to import these files in arcgis PRO you should not check the options “Flip Depth Direction” or “Flip Z and Y axis”. These options are available for you if you want to import the .obj files in other software that use a different coordinate system.

Click “run” to start the export. This may take some time if the seismic lines are large.

Export Raster to .OBJ The raster export is similar to the seismic export. Select the raster you want to export, select the output folder. Do not check the “Flip Depth Direction” or “Flip Z and Y axis” if you want import the files in ArcGis Pro. Click run to start the export. This may take some time if the raster is large.

Import .OBJ files in arcgis PRO

  1. To import the OBJ files into ArcGIS Pro use the built-in tool Import 3D Files

  2. Select the .obj files you want to import as well as the output multipatch feature class.

  3. Do not check the Y Is Up checkbox, and leave the Placement Points empty.

Release notes

  • Version 0.5.8, released 15-OCT-2021

    • This release has been tested on ArcGIS Pro versions 2.8.1, 2.8.2 and 2.8.3

    • The main toolbar tab has been renamed from Geocap to Ground Model.

    • 2D and 3D window are now separate and are attached to a shared map. Closing the map will close the 2D/3D windows.

    • The 2D and 3D windows have separate groups in the toolbar and separate TOCs.

    • Buffer clipping is now supported, ie create a buffer around an object and keep only objects inside

    • Drag-and-drop from the Pro TOC onto the Ground Model viewers are now supported, in addiction to DnD from Catalog.

    • The previous selection method of selecting objects in the map for 2D/3D display has been replaced by a simple single-click on the object of interest using the Select buttons in the toolbar. The object will automatically appear in the Geocap window.

    • Known limitations or issues:

      • Only 2D seismic lines are supported as basis for cross-section viewing and clipping. Future versions will support any line-line geometry.

      • When performing buffer-clipping only geometry of type points inside the buffer will be projected onto the seismic cross section. Future versions will project any geometry type inside the buffer.

      • Selecting an object for display in the map may require two clicks. Wait for the object to be highlighted.

      • Color legends are not supported in the 2D display, although it does appear in the right-click menu for toc items.

      • When displaying a seismic line in the 2D window, existing rasters that are clipped against the previous line will be cleared.

  • Version 0.5.4, released 06-AUG-2021

    • This release has been tested on ArcGIS Pro versions 2.8.0, 2.8.1, and 2.8.2

    • This is a bugfix release. Changes were made to the Add-in only, the toolbox is unchanged from the previous version.

    • Support for multiple instances of Pro

    • Support for reading projects created with earlier versions of the add-in and that had an open Geocap viewer. Version 0.5.3 introduced a 1:1 connectivity between maps and Geocap viewers but would fail to initialize properly when reading a old-style Geocap viewer not connected to a map.