Figure 1. Planning steps that can be followed to design 3-D seismic acquisition geometry. There is no single procedure for designing a land-based 3-D survey. Each prospect offers different design challenges, and 3-D designers follow various preferred computational steps. The method discussed here is logical, easy for non-geophysicists to understand and can be used for many 3-D seismic prospects. The method will be presented as a four-article series, with the topic of each article color coded on the chart. This paper deals with part 1 of the methodology.