A new high resolution filter for source edge detection of potential field data

Abstract

Determining the source edges is a frequently requested task in the analysis of potential fields. However, the edge detection methods have some drawbacks or shortcomings, for example, blurred responses to weak amplitude anomalies, the estimated peaks over the edges are low in gradient or bring out overestimated edges in the resulting maps. In this paper, a new method based on an arcsine function using the ratio of the vertical gradient to the total gradient of the amplitude of the horizontal gradient field is introduced for outlining the source edges. The validity of the method is tested on both synthetic and real data and the edge detection results are compared with those detected from some other existing methods. The results from the proposed filter provide more accurate and higher resolution edges, and can avoid producing the spurious edges in the results.

Keywords:

• Edge enhancement
• potential field data
• arcsine function

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).