Conventional seismic survey
Looking at how this would work on a typical seismic campaign, you could imagine a conventional campaign starting with a regional 2D exploration program, followed up with some more detailed infill 2D data (the orthogonal grid). The diagram shows a theoretical exploration area of 40 km by 25 km = 1000 km2
Development 3D programs on identified leads
Further appraisal or development 3D surveys would then be conducted over identified leads. Note, at this stage the investment in the previous 2D surveys is effectively lost.
Q-Technology VIVID program
An initial low-density exploration 3D acquisition (purple) would be conducted. Infill 3D surveys could be conducted later or during the same survey and at the same low density, but interleaved with the original survey to increase the density. Superposition of the different vintages of Q-Technology data enables seamless combination to achieve higher-fold data sets. This is shown in the blue survey; or the infill could be increased even further as shown in the orange and maroon surveys.
At each stage following the initial low-density survey, the data from the previous surveys are being used to supplement the latest dataset.