Can learning from natural image denoising be used for seismic data interpolation?

We have developed an interpolation method based on the denoising convolutional neural network (CNN) for seismic data. It provides a simple and efficient way to break through the problem of the scarcity of geophysical training labels that are often required by deep learning methods. This new method consists of two steps: (1) training a set of CNN denoisers to learn denoising from natural image noisy-clean pairs and (2) integrating the trained CNN denoisers into the project onto convex set (POCS) framework to perform seismic data interpolation. We call it the CNN-POCS method. This method alleviates the demands of seismic data that require shared similar features in the applications of end-to-end deep learning for seismic data interpolation. Additionally, the adopted method is flexible and applicable for different types of missing traces because the missing or down-sampling locations are not involved in the training step; thus, it is of a plug-and-play nature. These indicate the high generalizability of the proposed method and a reduction in the necessity of problem-specific training. The primary results of synthetic and field data show promising interpolation performances of the adopted CNN-POCS method in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio, dealiasing, and weak-feature reconstruction, in comparison with the traditional f-x prediction filtering, curvelet transform, and block-matching 3D filtering methods.