Voxel-based 3D Facies Segmentation from Seismic Data: A Comparative Study

2026-08-14

AI Summary

This study addresses the limitations of 2D methods in seismic facies segmentation, which disrupt 3D spatial continuity and lack unified benchmarks. To overcome these issues, we construct the first open, standardized voxel-based 3D segmentation benchmark and evaluation framework. By employing a voxel-wise 3D architecture, rigorous data partitioning, and multidimensional metrics, this work systematically evaluates mainstream models and establishes strong baselines. The proposed approach effectively mitigates slice discontinuity artifacts while revealing both the potential and challenges inherent in 3D methodologies. Consequently, this research provides a reproducible, standardized evaluation framework and critical reference for geological pattern recognition, facilitating more robust comparative studies in the field.

Abstract

Seismic facies segmentation has emerged as a significant challenge in geophysics, requiring robust methods and systems to effectively identify geologically analogous facies with limited labeled data. Although existing studies have shown promising results in 2D facies segmentation, they often preprocess the original 3D seismic volumes into sets of 2D slices, typically the inline and crossline directions, and treat this problem as a purely 2D segmentation task. This simplification introduces discontinuities across slices and fails to preserve the spatial and structural continuity in 3D seismic data, thus limiting the model's ability to learn coherent geological patterns. In this work, we present a comparative and reproducible benchmark for voxel-based 3D seismic facies segmentation, built upon publicly available seismic volumes including the Netherlands F3 and the Parihaka datasets, with standardized data splits and evaluation metrics. By evaluating the three representative families of modern 3D segmentation architectures, we establish strong baseline results that highlight the potential and remaining challenges for future research in this domain.

Problem

• Seismic facies segmentation
• Voxel-based 3D segmentation
• Spatial continuity
• Benchmark

Innovation

• Voxel-based 3D Segmentation
• Seismic Facies Segmentation
• Reproducible Benchmark
• Spatial Continuity