Safety-Minded Pilot

Pilots who fly planes or any type of aircraft have a preflight inspection checklist consisting of more than 30 items. If the pilots do not carefully follow the checklist each time before take-off, they increase the possibility of a tragic accident. Do you know what type of pilot is specially urged to complete the checklist every time? It is the very experienced pilot! A seasoned pilot could easily skip some of the details thinking nothing is going to happen, but an experienced one takes this checklist very seriously.

Like a safety-minded pilot, service companies and drilling engineers make survey calculations that are fundamental and necessary to monitor and control wellbore trajectories. Initially, the oil and gas industry was concentrated on drilling vertical wells. The concept of inclination angle began when engineers realized that a drilled wellbore trajectory was not a plumb line. Then the concept of azimuth angle arose when they found out that a drilled trajectory can deviate from a vertical well. A wellbore trajectory is a continuous curve in space that bends and turns simultaneously.

The oil and gas industry has acknowledged the importance of survey calculation for more than 50 years and has extensively applied the research results in the field. Inclinometers can only give parameters from separate survey stations and cannot give the real profile of a wellbore trajectory. Therefore, a proper method of survey calculation must be on the basis of a 3D wellbore trajectory model. A software with the help of simple methods can be sufficiently accurate and precise for these types of well such as extended-reach wells and multi-target wells.

By combining the survey calculations with visualization technology, PVI has developed PathView (Well Path Visualization) which provides an interactive, true 3D view of single and multiple wells.PathView - Well Path Visualization Software

Some of the features included in PathView are:

  • True 3D-rendered wellpath visualization
  • Anti-collision calculation
  • Surface lease lines
  • Lithology
  • Up to 5000 rows of survey data
  • Plots specified wellbore range
  • Up to 10 sidetrack levels
  • Plots and prints detailed well profiles
  • Plan view, Section view, 3D view and Dogleg

Precautionary methods are an effective way for safety-minded pilots to buy time to reevaluate the flight conditions. Pilots, who understand their aircraft systems, follow standard operating procedures and use conservative risk management techniques, will diminish inconvenient situations from further becoming worse; just like the ability to see the well path in a 3D work space is essential for engineers to visualize the development plan, understand it and therefore, avoid well collisions.

The Work Of Art Beneath It

We’ve all heard it many times: Don’t judge a book by its cover. However, a new technology indicates that we may have to start taking this approach when we look at historic artworks, too. So in this case it would be: Don’t judge a painting by its image.

A team of Italian scientists has initiated a new way of revealing layers of paints in paintings that are invisible to the naked eye. They have applied their technique to a couple of legendary works of art. The technology uncovered previously undetectable details in some paintings, such as pigments in the subjects’ armor that had been painted over during previous restorations of The Chapel of Theodelinda.

The beauty and yet mystery of what’s been found in all these old paintings is what makes it so special. The reason why most of these artists decided to create works of art on top of works of art is yet to be discovered, and we will probably never know. However, what we know about all these artists is that they were the type of artists that took art and designs to the next level.

Software development is taking art and designs to a level that was unimaginable when all these paintings were created and its creation is quite an artsy experience. It’s how we characterize our approach to software development that defines us as artists. The design and implementation phases of software can be a process of creating art, which makes the whole process interesting.

Developing the right engineering software demands vision. We not only spend a significant amount of time focusing on meeting the software goals, but also we work towards finding the beauty of a good design. While aesthetics are very important, we also develop software that is reliable and works efficiently.

The art experts have been scanning these paintings with multi-spectral imaging technology and x-ray fluorescence intensity mapping to try to identify and map the colors of the hidden painting. They want to recreate a digital image approximating the colors all these artists originally used. This will allow the audiences to understand and appreciate art more and allows them to be part of a piecing together a puzzle. Likewise we apply the latest technology and drilling engineering models into our software to meet the needs and requirements of our clients. Our software not only enriches the experience and amplifies the skill of our clients but also allows them to be part of the whole drilling process and access what was impossible before. It gives them a clearer view of what lies thousands of feet beneath the surface.

PathView - True Vertical Depth, Horizontal Displacement and Dogleg Severity

PathView - Well Path Visualization

New technology has always helped to remind us that there’s a lot more to a masterpiece than meets the eye. At PVI we thrive to offer our clients more than what they expect. Not just merely what they see on a computer, but what they’ll be able to get at a higher level. Think of it as our software being “the painting” and the achievements you’ll get from using it as “the work of art beneath it”.