Patent ID: 6542826
Filing Date: 2003-04-01
Classification: G01V,G06F

Abstract:
A method for sorting large volumes of seismic data into a defined order, said method comprising:a receiving step of receiving one of a plurality of data portions, where the plurality of data portions constitute an input data set, each data portion containing a plurality of seismic data and having associated therewith an index distinguishing the respective data portion from all other data portions in the input data set; an allocating step of allocating the received data portion to one of a plurality of leaf files of a B-Tree structure, the B-Tree structure defining a leaf order of the leaf files; a first storing step of storing the allocated data portion in a scratch memory space corresponding to the allocated leaf file; a first repeating step of repeating said receiving step, said allocating step and said first storing step until at least one of the leaf files is full; a reading step of reading a full one of the leaf files from the scratch memory space; a second storing step of storing data portions of the read leaf file into a sorting memory space; a sorting step of sorting the data portions in the sorting memory space into a respective sub-order based upon the indices of the data portions therein; a step of selectively repeating said reading step, said second storing step and said sorting step until all the data portions of the read leaf file have been sorted; an outputting step of outputting the sorted data portions of the read leaf file in their sub-order to a final output data stream; and a second repeating step of repeating at least said reading step, said second storing step, said sorting step and said outputting step until all the data portions of the input data set have been outputted in the respective sub-orders for all the full leaf files in leaf order to the final output data stream, where the data portions in their respective sub-orders for all the full leaf files in leaf order are in the defined overall order.