Patent ID: 7454292

Claim:
A method using a computer-based system having a processor and a memory for determining an average direction of a plurality of vectors corresponding to seismic data stored in the memory, where the seismic data can be noisy or scattered, comprising the steps of: a) determining an initial guide direction of the plurality of vectors to be a current guide direction using the processor; b) obtaining an inverse-vector of the plurality of vectors opposite to the current guide direction; c) computing a current average direction within a neighborhood of the plurality of vectors using the inverse-vector; d) setting the current average direction as the current guide direction; e) repeating the steps b-d until the current average direction leads to convergence within a predetermined threshold, with the convergent being the determined average direction, thereby smoothing the seismic data to obtain a smoothed vector corresponding to a dip and an azimuth; and f) outputting the smoothed seismic data.