Abstract
Seismic signals are often irregularly sampled along spatial coordinates, leading to suboptimal processing and imaging results. Least squares estimation of Fourier components is used for the reconstruction of band‐limited seismic signals that are irregularly sampled along one spatial coordinate. A simple and efficient diagonal weighting scheme, based on the distance between the samples, takes the properties of the noise (signal outside the bandwidth) into account in an approximate sense. Diagonal stabilization based on the energies of the signal and the noise ensures robust estimation. Reconstruction for each temporal frequency component allows the specification of a varying spatial bandwidth dependent on the minimum apparent velocity. This parameterization improves the reconstruction capability for the lower temporal frequencies. In practical circumstances, the maximum size of the gaps in which the signal can be reconstructed is three times the (temporal frequency dependent) Nyquist interval. Reconstruction in the wavenumber domain allows a very efficient implementation of the algorithm, and takes a total number of operations a few times that of a 2-D fast Fourier transform corresponding to the size of the output data set. Quality control indicators of the reconstruction procedure can be computed which may also serve as decision criteria on in‐fill shooting during acquisition. The method can be applied to any subset of seismic data with one varying spatial coordinate. Applied along the cross‐line direction, it can be used to compute a 3-D stack with improved anti‐alias protection and less distortion of the signal within the bandwidth.