STVSTV Seismic Trace Viewer

Tutorials

Short, practical walkthroughs. Each takes only a few minutes.

1. Opening Your First File

  1. Start STV by running the launch script.
  2. Press Ctrl+O (or choose File > Open Folder) and pick a folder containing .segy or .sgy files.
  3. The folder appears as the root of the file tree on the left.
  4. Click any SEG-Y file — its traces appear in the display panel.

2. When Traces Look Like Noise — Check Byte Order

  1. If a file loads but the wiggles look like white noise or amplitudes are absurd, the file is probably little-endian.
  2. Uncheck the Big Endian checkbox on the toolbar.
  3. The file reloads immediately with bytes swapped. Flip it back and forth until the data looks right.
  4. Classic SEG-Y is big-endian; revision 2.0 (2017) additionally permits little-endian.

3. Inspecting Trace Headers

  1. Choose View > Monitor trace header.
  2. A dialog opens and follows your cursor.
  3. Move across the display — the dialog shows the 240-byte header of the trace under the cursor: sequence numbers, shot/receiver coordinates, offset, CDP, and more.
  4. Leave it open while you work; the numbers update live.

4. Checking the File Headers First

  1. When a file looks wrong, check the file-level headers before the traces.
  2. View > File binary header shows sample interval, samples per trace, and data format code — the most common liars.
  3. View > File EBCDIC header shows the 40-line textual description: client, line, acquisition parameters, processing history.
  4. If the EBCDIC header is blank or garbage, the file may be corrupt or mistyped.

5. Zooming and Panning

  1. Zoom in: hold Alt+Shift and drag a rectangle — release to zoom into it.
  2. Zoom out: click with Alt+Shift held down.
  3. Pan: click the pan-mode toolbar button, then drag the display to scroll.
  4. Or use the toolbar zoom buttons for axis-specific zoom (horizontal / vertical).

6. Taking Snapshots for Reports

  1. Frame the view you want.
  2. For a quick paste into a document: click the snapshot to clipboard button.
  3. For a file: click the snapshot to PNG button — it saves into the project image folder with an automatic timestamp name.
  4. Use the pane variants to include side labels — usually the better choice for figures.