Special Sessions on Petrotechnical Visualization A Point of (3D) View on Visualization

Abstract

Session Abstract The AAPG-sponsored Special Session: Petrotechnical Visualization consists of back-to-back morning and afternoon sections with seven presentations per section. Each author will offer a dynamic, interactive presentation such as a live fly-through of marine datasets. The common themes throughout the Special Session are:Integration of multiple data types for greater understanding of offshore technical challenges,Positive impact of visualization techniques on business performance. Authors from large and small operating companies, academia and industry contractors will present topics covering upstream geoscience and engineering interest areas from pre-exploration seabed surveys through drilling, reservoir visualization, infield facilities layout and export pipeline planning and installation. Geographically, the talks will feature case studies from several basins (West Africa, Columbus-Trinidad, Lake Maracaibo-Venezuela and Gulf of Mexico, where 3D visualization techniques have played a key role in successful E & P projects. The morning section highlights presentations concerning geohazards and seafloor visualization, plus other petrotechnical areas. Specific topics include visualization of multibeam sonar data[1], reducing risk from seafloor hazards[2,4], integration of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) datasets, assessment of shallow drilling hazards and visualization used in analysis of a deepwater pipelay with incidental discovery of a historical ship wreck. Following the morning presentations focused on drilling/geohazards and pipeline routing, the second session on "Petrotechnical Visualization" will illustrate how 3D visualization tools have been allied to state-of-the-art technologies (e.g. Neural-Network seismic classification and tomography-based pore pressure prediction. Overall, the presentations will cover the complete range of the E&P cycle from new play development, mature field exploitation[9,13], pore pressure prediction, well planning to subsea installation and offer a panorama of the strengths (and limitations) of 3D visualization techniques via fully interactive "live" presentations. This session will be completed by an update on one of the latest development in hardware/software configuration, providing an insight into the "Hollowing out" concept and future 3D visualization environments. A point of (3D) view on Visualization 3D visualization has gradually been introduced into E&P workflows since the late 80s. At first, there was a bit of reluctance from the E&P community to take up the new technology, in part due to a change in interpretation habits (pioneers were sometimes seen as "video-game" interpreters). An additional reason that 3D visualization was slow to catch on was the severe performance limitations of the early hardware/software platforms. At that time, interactivity could only be obtained with compromises in display resolution and/or dataset size. It was only in the late 1990s that the continuous advances in hardware/3D visualization technologies resulted in a proliferation of visualization centers (Figure 1). First implemented within major oil companies, these "Viz centers" became the de-facto collaborative 3D environments to integrate multidisciplinary results and promote exchange of ideas between geoscientists (Figure 2). Along with this one of the negative effects of the development of interpretation workstations started to affect interpretation workflows: Interpreters were spending more and more time in front their monitor" and less and less time directly interact

Scalable and interactive visual computing in geosciences and reservoir engineering

“…The main advantage of post-processing is that data can be examined repeatedly using different mapping techniques. The next generation of postprocessing reservoir visualization technology faces great challenges owing to (a) the growing scale and complexity of reservoir simulations, (b) the need to integrate, visualize and explore a broader range of data fused with the post-processing simulation, and (c) the industry need for tools supporting multidisciplinary collaborative decision-making (Cosentino 2001;Zamel et al 2001;Fanchi 2002;Thomson & Poupon 2004;Dopkin & James 2006;Giertse 2009). …”

“…The challenge is to determine the appropriate visual interaction and representation of the information for the user, their experience and their role/task. Overall, an effective visual computing system needs to be based on the targeted users and their specific intended use of the systems, as well as supporting multidisciplinary collaborative decision-making (Tyson & Williams 1993;Thomson & Poupon 2004;Love & Purday 2008). In summary, these new challenges require research of novel scalable and interactive visual computing technologies and solutions to provide:…”

“…The fundamental goal of interactive visual computing is to provide technological tools for users, supporting the rapid manipulation, visualization and analysis of data. The outcome of the interactive visual computing process is the transformation of raw data into processed information, and ultimately into knowledge (Plaisant et al 2003;Thomson & Poupon 2004;Bertini & Lalanne 2009). …”