Seismic data view — g-Viewer
Seismic data view

Seg-Y viewer

The Seismic view is g-Viewer's core display: the whole dataset in one window, wiggle or variable density, with palette, gain, AGC and band-pass applied to what you see rather than to the file — and trace headers drawn above the section where you can read them against the data.

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Whole dataset
In one window, zoom redraws
Wiggle + density
Switch display mode freely
Visual-only
Filters never touch the file
A seismic section in g-Viewer with a receiver-elevation trace-header curve plotted above it and a colour bar on the right
g-Viewer post-stack workspace with a Save Seg-Y crop dialog, a spectrum panel and a location map beside the section
In view
Trace headers above the section
One window, the whole file. The Seismic view loads a dataset and displays its full content; zoom into any part and only that section is redrawn on screen. Everything you change is a display setting. Palette, normalization, gain, AGC and the band-pass cutoffs live in the View properties panel and act on the picture, not on the SEG-Y — so you can try a filter, decide against it, and still hand the original file on untouched. What you add on top — trace-header curves above the section, a legend, a colour bar, a scale bar, a compass — travels with the picture when you export it.
Display

Read the data the way you want to read it.

The display modes and the per-item appearance settings are separate: the view decides how traces are drawn, each vista item decides how its own data is coloured and scaled.

Wiggle or variable density
Switch between wiggle traces and a colour-filled section, with trace spacing and overlap adjustable so events stay legible at any trace count.
Palette per dataset
Colour bar and inverted palette are properties of the individual vista item, so two datasets shown together can carry different colour schemes in the same view.
Normalization you control
Choose the source for the colour range, or set your own minimum and maximum and hide everything outside it. Auto normalization is there when you just want the section on screen.
Gain and AGC
Gain and an AGC window are per-item display properties — AGC for visualization, trace normalization for comparing one section against another.
Band-pass on the picture
Enable band-pass in View properties and set an F1 lower cutoff and an F2 upper cutoff. It is a visual-only setting: the input seismic data is not modified.
Headers above the section
The View tab's Trace Headers setting adds header information from the SEG-Y straight onto a section view, so elevation, offset or fold reads against the traces below it.
Legend, colour bar, grid
Turn on a legend and its format, a colour bar down the right-hand side, a grid, a background colour and an isometric mode that locks the two scales together.
Scales you set
Vertical and horizontal scale values, their precision (automatic or your own), axis tick counts, linear or logarithmic axes, and orientation flips for either axis.
View tools

The toolbar above every section.

The Seismic view's functional panel is a fixed row of tools. They are the same tools on a common-gather view, so nothing has to be relearned when you move from a stack to a shot record.

Navigate
Zoom & adjust

Set the view zoomable and drag out the area you want; the tool resets after each use, so a zoom is always deliberate. Adjust to size returns the display to the full section, and separate buttons adjust the horizontal or the vertical scale alone. Pan the section with the middle mouse button held down.

Measure
Ruler, tracker & tool tip

Draw a line with the ruler to measure a distance — the apparent velocity of an event, for instance — and read the result off the tool tip. A mouse tracker draws crosshair guides at the cursor, and the tool tip reports whatever sits under it. A scale bar and a compass can be shown alongside.

Analyse
Spectral analysis

Drag out one region or several on the section and each gets its own amplitude spectrum. By default g-Viewer shows the spectrum of the full visible section.

Select
Traces & control item

Pick a trace with the control item, select traces to clear or export them to file, and open the trace-headers table for whatever is selected.

Settings

Two tabs run the whole appearance.

View properties is a dynamic panel: open it from the Settings button on any view and it shows the parameters for whatever is active. It is split into a View tab for the view itself and a Vista tab for the items drawn inside it.

View tab
Settings that belong to the view
Axes
Flip the orientation of either axis, hide its annotation, choose linear or logarithmic, and set how many ticks the horizontal axis carries.
Scale
Vertical and horizontal scale values with automatic or manual precision, plus an isometric mode that holds the two equal.
Colour bar
Enable the bar, and optionally drive it from a general range with your own minimum and maximum applied to every vista on the view.
Annotation
Legend on or off with its format, a grid, a background colour, and the Trace Headers setting that adds SEG-Y header information to a section view.
Reset & propagate
Put the properties back to their defaults, or push them across to every other view of the same type in one action.
Vista tab
Settings that belong to each item drawn
Visibility & order
Turn individual items on and off, turn everything off at once, and re-order the layers so the right one sits on top.
Working mode
Switch the view between selected-trace and control-item modes without leaving the panel.
Colour
Colour bar, inverted palette, transparency level and value precision, per item.
Range
Normalization source, min/max range values for a user-defined range, hide-out-of-range, and auto normalization.
Amplitude
Gain and an AGC window in milliseconds, applied to the item's display only.
Where the settings live
The parts of the interface this page refers to — named as the g-Viewer manual names them
Seismic view View properties Vista items Trace data Band-pass filtering Spectral analysis Hotkeys Tools bar
Export

Out of the viewer, into the report.

1
Set the scale
Fix the vertical and horizontal scale of the view, and its precision, so the figure comes out at the size the report wants rather than at whatever the window happened to be.
2
Add the annotation
Trace-header curves above the section, legend, colour bar, scale bar, compass — and the Tools bar's Options for whether view and tab annotations sit at the top or the bottom.
3
Export the picture
The Export picture button on the view toolbar captures and saves the view for documentation or presentations.
4
Or export the data
Save Seg-Y writes the seismic back out — all traces, a trace range, or an inline/crossline range, resampled if you ask. Seismic export is SEG-Y only.
5
And the headers
Save text header writes the EBCDIC/text header to a TXT file; Save trace headers lets you tick the headers you want and writes them to a spreadsheet.
6
Work full screen
Shift+F11 hides the side panels, F11 spreads g-Viewer across every screen, and Shift plus the left or right arrow hides one side at a time. Ctrl+S saves the project.
More g-Viewer capabilities

The section view is one panel in a linked workspace.

Everything selected in one view shows up in the others — the map, the header table, the QC graph. These are the other g-Viewer topics.

g-Viewer overview 3D view Multiple datasets Pre-stack QC Location map More formats & plug-ins
FAQ

Questions, answered.

How does the Seismic view handle a large dataset?
The Seismic view is the main display window and shows the full content of the dataset in one window. Zoom into any part of it and just that section is drawn on screen, so you move around a survey-sized file by redrawing a window rather than by re-opening it. Before a full load you can also work in Preview Mode, which shows the text and trace headers, a quick data image and a location map of the traces already read — enough to check a file is what you think it is.
Can I display seismic as wiggle and as variable density?
Yes. The view switches between wiggle traces and colour-filled variable density, with trace spacing and overlap adjustable for clarity and a custom gain setting to sharpen wiggle mode. Colour bar, inverted palette, normalization source, min/max range, transparency, gain and AGC are all properties of the individual vista item, so two datasets in the same view can be displayed differently.
Does the band-pass filter change my SEG-Y file?
No. Band-pass is enabled in the View properties panel with an F1 lower cutoff and an F2 upper cutoff, and the manual is explicit that it is a visual-only setting that does not modify the input seismic data. The same is true of AGC and gain, which are display properties of the vista item.
What can I export from a view?
The view toolbar has an Export picture button that captures and saves the view for documentation or presentations, with whatever annotation you have configured — trace-header curves above the section, legend, colour bar, scale bar and compass. Data export from the Tools bar is SEG-Y for the seismic itself, with the text/EBCDIC header exported to a TXT file and selected trace headers exported to a spreadsheet.
Get started free

Open your own SEG-Y and look at it.

g-Viewer is a fully functional free trial with auto-update, for Windows, Linux and macOS on Apple Silicon. Drag in a file and the section is on screen in minutes.

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