Experience has shown that, given a good implementation, each of the one-way algorithms has a useful place in most, if not all, prestack migration projects. When implemented properly, almost any of the algorithms discussed here will produce a reasonable result. From a hierarchical perspective, the top of the pyramid is dominated by two-way methods. These full wavefield techniques always produce the best result when the velocity model is correct. Moreover, they almost always do a better job than their one-way counterparts when the velocity model is not correct. Moving down the hierarchy tends to reduce the computational complexity at the cost of image quality. Because they leave something out of the imaging process, one-way approaches are also much more sensitive to velocity errors.
