Visualization of 3D geological-entities based on triangular prism

A new method for 3D visualization of geological entities based on the volume element of triangular-prism is presented in this paper. This method firstly preprocesses the original drill data into grid elevation data and each layer´s grids are corresponding. Then this method links the corresponding grids of two consecutive layers so as to get the quadrangular of each stratum. We divide this quadrangular into two triangular-prisms and treat them as our volume element. According to the data structure of the triangular-prisms the author proposed, this paper divides the cutting condition of triangular-prism into three types, which are full-cutting, peculiar-cutting and pseudo-cutting. The characteristics and the detailed triangular-prism cutting forms of each cutting type are also proposed in this paper. The author uses this method to simulate the 3D geological-entities of a coalmine in Huainan China and gets a satisfying result