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Introduction

Traditionally traveltime and amplitude calculations have been performed by ray tracing. Different ray tracing algorithms exist that are well known and well documented. They include ray bending (Julian and Gubbins, 1977), shooting rays (Dines and Lytle, 1979) and paraxial extrapolation (Cervený, 1987). More recently, several new methods have appeared and are enjoying an increasing popularity. They include finite differences (van Trier and Symes, 1991; Vidale, 1990; Podvin and Lecomte, 1991) and shortest path rays (Moser, 1991).

This paper presents a review of two new ray tracing methods and explores some of the possibilities produced by their fusion. The first method is Lomax's waveray method for approximating broadband wave propagation through complex velocity structures (Lomax, 1994). The second method was developed at the NORSAR institute in Norway by Vinje et al. (1993). As will be shown later, both methods have their own advantages and drawbacks, but when they are fused, they interfere positively. The combined product produces a very robust method, which approximates broadband wave phenomena in complex velocity models.

The first two parts of this paper describe the basic characteristics of each method and their implementations. The paper also reviews some of the work done in the last two references listed above. In the last part, I discuss the combined method. Implementation issues and synthetic examples are shown.


next up previous [pdf]

Next: LOMAX'S WAVERAYS Up: Urdaneta: Waverays and wavefronts Previous: Urdaneta: Waverays and wavefronts

2013-03-03