SGI and Landmark conducted a technology tour de force at the Denver SEG this month. Using a dataset loaned by Marathon and Landmark’s Geoprobe interpretation software, SGI demonstrated a purpose built graphics supercomputer at the Denver Planetarium. The system was built around a 64 processor SGI Onyx4 with 4 graphics processing units, 512GB system memory running a 64 bit version of GeoProbe. The seismic data visualized was 400GB in size, a world record according to Landmark.
Crawford
Sharon Crawford, computer-aided interpretation supervisor with Marathon said, ‘Marathon has many very large datasets used to characterize complex reservoirs and currently geoscientists are limited in the amount of data they can visualize at one time. The ability to visualize multiple attributes over an entire area will give a better understanding of the overall picture.’ Oil IT Journal found the display lacked impact. This was probably due to the ‘dilution’ of the 14 megapixels over the vast expanse of the Planetarium. Looking upwards from a reclining seat to see down into the earth is also an awkward ‘metaphor’..
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2004 Issue # 10.
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