Compiling Regional Compilations using a New, Automated Grid Stitching Method

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