Seeing the forest and the trees

摘要

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., one of the world's largest independent petroleum exploration and production companies, deployed a large-scale advanced visualization system in its Woodlands, Texas, corporate headquarters in 2002. The system, known as IDEA Labs (Image Delivery for Enhanced Awareness) consists of seven workroom environments spread throughout the building and one large, centrally-located theater-scale installation. The IDEA labs use a variety of computing and projection platforms to allow maximum flexibility within the E&P workflow. Staff have leveraged the available technologies in many ways, some of which have been unanticipated. The most widely discussed geotechnical workflow for advanced visualization is interpretation, followed by reservoir management and well bore planning. These tasks are well-suited to large scale projection and computing facilities. They are not, however, the only workflow components that can be greatly enhanced by collaborative visualization. In particular, Anadarko geoscientists have had tremendous success using their environments for quality control (QC) of seismic data before the interpretation process ever begins. Collaborative workflow in the IDEA labs has enhanced the QC process across a variety of projects all over the world, allowing technical specialists more time with better data for determining the best approach to a survey area.