How to import external seismic color tables into Petrel 2009

Note: The color tables imported into Petrel in this example are SeisWorks color maps.

Previewing color tables in text editors: Poor readability

• .txt files can be previewed in e.g. WordPad (it

may have better readability than Notepad and
other plain text editors)

Formatting the color table within Excel

• Within Excel select File from the menu bar, ‘Open’ from the drop down list.
• Select the .txt file you want, ensuring file type is set as ‘All Files (*.*)’

• In the Text Import Wizard dialog box that opens, choose to display as fixed width in step 1, click
next, then choose to display column data format as general in step 3. Select Finish.

• Part of the colormap .txt file can be seen in the right image.
• You may wish to copy and paste (Ctrl C/Ctrl V) the column out into a new spreadsheet. Next
separate the RGB information out from 1 column to 3. To do this in Excel, go to the Data tab and
select ‘text to columns’. In Vista the icon looks like this:

1 column 3 columns

Populate 4th column

by double clicking
on bottom right
corner of cell.

• Next type in ‘255’ representing 100% Opacity in a fourth column and populate that column.
Place cursor over bottom right corner of cell and double click. This can be a value between 0 and
255 (see the explanation on importing .alut files for more information)
• Next use the Excel concatenate function. For the strings it is abbreviated with an ampersand ‘&’.
The string will be between double quotes “.
 Concatenate expression

• Your data will now be in the right format. Copy this and paste special into an .alut file as
‘unformatted text’. (If you do not have an .alut file, export a seismic color table from Petrel
templates pane, and select .alut file type on export. Then open this file and delete the contents
so that new data can be added).

Color bars can only be exported in 1 format:

Paste special in empty .alut

file as ‘Unformatted text’

.alut file ready for import

into Petrel ‘Seismic color
Concatenated column
tables’ folder
 Importing Color Bars:

• In the templates pane, right click on the ‘Seismic color tables’ folder and select ‘Import (on
selection.’

• In the ‘Import file’ dialog window that opens go to ‘Files of type.’

Examples of the four types of files that Petrel accepts, including RGB color tables with an alpha
column, will be given in the file example / description field:

.txt:

InterPolate false
UseTrimming false
Name RGB test table
separator ,
240,240,240
22,245,22
22,24,222
222,24,22
222,224,22
.alut file format: This format is similar to the .txt format. It
or there is the .alut option:
consists of 4 comma separated columns where the first three
140 represent, Red, Green, Blue and the last opacity (o). Each
255
000,000,000,255 parameter has a value of 0 through 255. eg. 255, 0, 0, 2555 -
001,001,001,255 completely red, 100% opacity. (8 bits depth per color gives a 24
002,002,002,255
003,003,003,255 bit color depth - 16777216 colors)

• A color table trimming options dialog box will open. Leave options on default and select ok. The
new color table should then populate under the Seismic color tables folder in the templates
pane.
 Display your seismic using the new color table:

• Go to the Seismic data in the Input pane and double click to open the settings dialog window.
Go to the Style tab where you can select for the color map template you need. Then select
‘Apply’.

Colormaps (Seisworks Colormap template applied to seismic

color tables) once line and displayed in a 3D window
imported into Petrel