Patent ID: 8301385

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for obtaining beamed data from shot gather data, the method comprising: receiving shot gather data for a geophysical volume of interest in a first domain, the first domain having at least a first component and a second component, the first component relating to seismic wave propagation time within the geophysical volume of interest, and the second component relating to lateral spacing in the geophysical volume of interest; transforming the received shot gather data from the first domain to a second domain, the second domain having a frequency component and at least one spatial component, the at least one spatial component of the second domain corresponding to the second component of the first domain; weighting the shot gather data in the second domain using a weighting function; transforming the weighted shot gather data from the second domain to the first domain; and applying a forward transform to the weighted shot gather data in the first domain to obtain beamed data in a third domain, the third domain having at least a first component and a second component, the first component relating to local plane wave arrival time at a beam center surface location of the geophysical volume of interest, and the second component relating to plane wave arrival directions.