GEOSCIENCES

Gene Kliewer • Houston

Seismic processing technology leaps ahead

Computing capacities and software that takes advantage of it are in the news.Schlumbergerand HPdemonstrated the performance improvements realized when running Petrel and GeoFrame on HP’s new Z800 workstation. The hardware, newly released this past March, increased the graphics presentation to 30 frames/second, a 600-time improvement over the previous workstation, says Russ Sagert, Schlumberger Information Solutions business development manager. Another advantage is the station’s capacity to run multiple operating systems. This all combines to direct attention to today’s emphasis on production optimization, Sagert says.

The workstation itself uses solid state drives for response, a choice of Intel’s Xenon 5500 chipsets with Turbo QuickPath processing, and NVIDIA graphics boards. The Z800 is one of three Z-class workstations available from HP. It offers the highest performance as the most expandable dual-socket architecture compared with the Z400 or Z600. HP’s Jeff Wood, director of Worldwide Marketing of workstations, says that oil and gas exploration uses of the hardware are best met with this highest-performance workstation.

The system uses Parallels to manage the visualization input/output among the CPU, GPU, and memory to give virtual workstation visualization within 95% of that from the native host.

HP also has incorporated NVIDIA’s newest Quadro Plex FX 5800. Connecting two of these boards in one workstation gives images at a resolution of 36 megapixels, can span two 4K projectors or eight auto-synchronized displays, and drive stereoscopic 3D.

Version JGSW 8.1 ofFugro-Jason’s enhanced Jason Geoscience Workbench includes new AVO Attribute/Analysis and Full Waveform Synthetics applications, in addition to upgrades of existing products.

The new AVO Attribute/Analysis module will allow extraction of seismic AVA or AVO attributes from pre- or partial stack seismic data. The full-wave synthetics allow calculation of pre- and post-stack NMO synthetics with and without multiples.

Seismic Micro-Technologyunveils its new KINGDOM 8.4. SMT says the keys to this new release are an advanced autopicker based on the KINGDOM Illuminator technology, and support for surface and volume curvature attributes.

SMT says the Advanced Autopicker accurately handles complex geologies and near-vertical attributes.

Ikon Sciencenow has RokDok Version 5.4 available. This release is supported on Windows and Linux 32- and 64-bit platforms. The quantitative interpretation tool expands its interactive Petrel plug-in, adds a new Bayesian seismic classification to lithology module, a new 3D interactive stochastic inversion and spectral inversion module, a new bed thickness and depth trend analysis functions, and covers all the RokDok products, according to Ikon.

Paradigmhas a first release of the Epos OpenSpirit Link delivered by a new Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 | Epos 4.0. Paradigm says the new release connects the OpenSpirit data connectors and the Epos framework.

Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 is a new synchronized release of Paradigm’s geophysics, petrophysics, geology, and engineering solutions.

Rock & Fluid Canvas 2009 operating on the open infrastructure allows for seamless operations across different E&P disciplines. “The new Epos infrastructure incorporates common data models, interfaces, services, and visualization platforms,” says Ofra Kalechshtain, Paradigm executive VP, R&D.