TBSIM: A computer program for conditional simulation of three-dimensional Gaussian random fields via the turning bands method

Abstract

The simulation of spatially correlated Gaussian random fields is widespread in geologic, hydrologic and environmental applications for characterizing the uncertainty about the unsampled values of regionalized attributes. In this respect, the turning bands method has received attention among practitioners, for it allows multidimensional simulations to be generated at the CPU cost of one-dimensional simulations. This work provides and documents a set of computer programs for (i) constructing three-dimensional realizations of stationary and intrinsic Gaussian random fields, (ii) conditioning these realizations to a set of data and (iii) back-transforming the Gaussian values to the original attribute units. Such programs can deal with simulations over large domains and handle anisotropic and nested covariance models. The quality of the proposed programs is examined through an example consisting of a non-conditional simulation of a spherical covariance model. The artifact banding in the simulated maps is shown to be negligible when thousands of lines are used. The main parameters of the univariate and bivariate distributions, as well as their expected ergodic fluctuations, also prove to be accurately reproduced.