Supported SEG-Y Formats

SEG-Y Reader is designed to read SEG-Y files written on Big Endian and Little Endian machine architectures. Trace values and trace header values may be stored as 4-byte, 2-byte, or 1-byte integers, or 4-byte IBM or IEEE floating point values.

Although the SEG-Y and SEG-Y Rev 1 technical standards (external link) identify specific locations and 2-byte and 4-byte integers for most trace-header values, common usage enables coordinate information, in-line & cross-line numbers, and various other parameters to be written to different locations and data types within the trace headers. In SEG-Y Reader, you may specify custom configurations that support these variations.  The TraceViewer enables you to view individual traces and trace headers and you may specify non-standard byte-offset and number formats for trace header fields used in the conversion.

Upon opening a file, the binary and trace headers will be scanned for format specifications. The SEG-Y format specifies a byte-offset and data format for each trace header field (e.g. Group X coordinate & Group Y coordinate at byte-offsets 80 and 84, both 4-byte integers). In practice, binary header values are often absent or wrong, and trace header fields are frequently empty, in a different location, and/or stored in a different format.

SEG-Y Reader does not support the use of Extended Textual File Headers as described in the rev. 1 specification.