VoxelGeo is an innovative volume visualization application that provides geoscientists with the ability to view inside seismic volumes, thus gaining better understandings of spatial relationships between complex structural or stratigraphic features. This latest release of VoxelGeo includes substantial new functionality that enables geoscientists to access foreign interpretation databases using CogniSeis' new Uniform Links Architecture. VoxelGeo V2.1.7 "represents a major step forward for this innovative volume visualization product," said Bob
Wentland, VoxelGeo Product Manager at CogniSeis.
ULA
"The new functionality that was included in this release incorporates significant new capabilities in addition to several enhancements in response to customer requests." Wentland added, "Chief among the many new features and enhancements included in this release is full support for CogniSeis' Uniform Links Architecture (ULA) to SeisWorks, IESX, and Charisma interpretation databases. With VoxelGeo 2.1.7, our customers now have complete read/write access to these databases, thereby allowing modifications made in VoxelGeo to be stored back in the original interpretation database. The ULA links are indicative of CogniSeis' commitment to providing open solutions to industry problems". The new release also provides bi-directional links to SeisX, allowing the interpreter to share interpretation between SeisX & VoxelGeo and a new internal animator to allow users to easily generate movie images of VoxelGeo data. Calling VoxelGeo a visualization product falls short of giving a clear picture of this remarkable product.
Rocket-fuel
It is in fact a fully-fledged seismic interpretation environment, with interaction with the data displayed either as conventional trace seismic or as volumes and surfaces. Derived from a sister product used in medical imaging, VoxelGeo allows for 3D image enhancement and analysis, and provides sophisticated automated data tracking based on seismic amplitude and other attributes. Control of voxel transparency allows tracking of reservoir "sweet spots" and thresholding allows the lateral extend of a seismic anomaly to be mapped. VoxelGeo can equally be used to study CAT scans of borehole cores, the US military even use it to QC solid rocket fuel!
Checkered history
CogniSeis has had something of a checkered history since its' beginnings in 1978 as Digicon's Computer Systems Division. In 1987, the division was bought from Digicon by its management and became CogniSeis. Over the intervening years, CogniSeis acquired successively Geo Logic Systems, Inc., a developer of geologic software, of Boulder, Colorado, the VoxelGeo division of Vital Images a medical imaging concern and later, Photon Systems Ltd., a Canadian interpretation software company with offices in Calgary, Houston, and London. Meanwhile, Tech-Sym, a public corporation that owns other high tech electronics companies, acquired all of CogniSeis' stock and in April 1996, the ownership of CogniSeis, Syntron, Inc., and the Symtronix Corporation was transferred from Tech-Sym Corporation to GeoScience Corporation. Most recently a loss at CogniSeis reduced Tech-Sym's 1997 first quarter earnings by $0.13 a share, reflecting the high upfront cost of developing and maintaining software in the high tech E&P sector. Following this, CogniSeis, in a letter to their clients announced that they were up for sale. An announcement which in the words of Richard Cooper, CogniSeis' President, "has caused a great deal of interest, excitement, and speculation, not to mention some concern". Putting a brave face on things, Cooper states that CogniSeis sees a change in ownership as "a vehicle to potentially accelerate our product development and enhance the services we provide". Tech-Sym says they have received "indications of interest" from several companies regarding CogniSeis.
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