Both of planar and axisymmetric methods for Rayleigh wave analysis are introduced. These methods are very useful for simulating testing signals and dispersion curves and studying higher Rayleigh wave modes. Rayleigh wave modes of the signals can be separated and the dispersions of various modes can be obtained by 2-D Fourier transformation or multiple filter/cross-correlation technique. The dispersion obtained by phase–unwrapped technique can be regarded as an average of weighted dispersion of various modes. The variation of dispersion is related to mechanic parameters of layered media,and the parameters can be obtained by forward or back analysis. Moreover,the application of Rayleigh wave into detecting of underground obstacles is described.