NORSAR Software Suite (NSS) 2025 is a bugfix and system upgrade release, focused on bringing the platform up to date with modern software libraries and improving overall stability and performance. While not a feature-heavy release, several important improvements and fixes have been made across key workflows and components.

Please note: This is the last version supporting RHEL 7/CentOS 7 which reached EOL June 30, 2024.

System and Library Upgrades 

A number of third-party libraries have been updated to their latest supported versions: 

  • Qt upgraded from 5.14 to 6.8 
  • Qwt upgraded from 6.2 to 6.3 
  • VTK upgraded from 7.1.1 to 9.3 
  • Python upgraded from 2.7 to 3.11 
  • HDF5 upgraded from 1.8 to 1.14 
  • Zlib upgraded from 1.3 to 1.3.1 
  • Boost upgraded from 1.73 to 1.87 

Platform Changes
Windows: Development environment updated from Visual Studio 2017 to Visual Studio 2022

Linux: Primary platform is now Rocky Linux 9 (Support for CentOS 7 is maintained via a separate binary distribution until the next release.)
 

Major Functional Updates 

Seismogram Generator 

  • DAS amplitudes are now correctly interpreted as strain amplitudes. 

SeisRoX Enhancements 

  • Anisotropy is now supported. 
  • Attenuation modeling fixed—previous versions applied excessive attenuation. 

Survey-Dependent Tools 

  • IRAY and Flower Plot: Improved angle accuracy with new retracing logic; previously reflection angles were too coarsely sampled. 
     

Bug Fixes and Improvements 

Units Handling 

  • Inconsistencies addressed; units now explicitly set in the Units tab in project definition. (Note: Some modules still use the km-system.) 

Visualization and UI

  • Improvements in color map settings 
  • Fixed color mapping range issues in DIP and DEPTH illumination maps 
  • General stability improvements in model builders 
  • Removed outdated and little-used functionality 

Illumination Workflows 

  • Areal filter bugs fixed in both Illumination Map and Cube workflows 
  • Optimizations in MDesign DAS Illumination workflow 

Toolkit and API 

  • NORSAR Data Toolkit: 
    • Improved handling of illegal project names 
    • Fixed incorrect Y-axis in C# project grid area query 

SeisRoX Specific Fixes 

  • Correct assignment of rest properties in model builder 
  • Interactive illumination rays now work better with anisotropy 
  • Kirchhoff workflow execution is now more stable 

Data Import and Interop 

  • Fixed rotation bug when importing symmetry axis from SEGY files as azimuthal plane 

Miscellaneous 

  • Workflow queue handling improved 
  • Security updates 
  • Fixed vertical well handling in VSP Survey Generator 
     

Summary

NORSAR Software Suite 2025 sets the stage for future feature development by delivering critical upgrades and stability improvements. We recommend all users upgrade to this version to benefit from enhanced performance, compatibility, and robustness.