POSC supplier workshop - Landmark Graphics Corp. (February 1998)

Following GeoQuest's presentation at the firstsupplier workshop in Dallas last November it was Landmark's turn to show proof of'full compliance' at the POSC London member meeting this month. Just likeGeoQuest with GeoFrame, Landmark are migrating OpenWorks to 'full POSCcompliance'.

There is to be one POSC-derived data model throughout OpenWorks building on POSC projects such as SAVE, RAMP WIME, RESCUE and IPP. John Sherman, Landmark's VP Data Management described OpenWorks 98 as a POSC compliant release in terms of it's Logical Layer, Access and Exchange, Reference Tables, CGM/PIP, and the domain specific subsets described above. From now on all changes and revisions to OpenWorks will be Epicentre compliant. Unlike other vendors (who could they be talking about?) Landmark uses "Open Projections" from the above mentioned sub-setting projects. Future domains will integrate results of WIME and RESCUE. Since Landmark's master database Open Explorer uses the same data model as OpenWorks this POSC work is leveraged to Open Explorer. Note that the compliance here is at the level of the tables and rows of the physical data model but the OpenWorks logical model is said to be "converging" to that of Epicentre. The ultimate aim is for OpenWorks to become a subset of Epicentre but this needs to be done through incremental change in order to "keep the applications with us" (a similar position was reported recently by GeoQuest see PDM Vol. 2 N° 11).

Readers of PDM may be surprised to see Landmark's use of the results of the Discovery project in OpenWorks. We have previously reported the failure of this project to come up with an acceptable convergence of the POSC and PPDM data models. We stand by this. While Discovery may have allowed Landmark to stick a "POSC inside" logo on their software, it has not been a success to date elsewhere and has no general currency either with POSC or PPDM.

Cartography has been re-vamped using a projection of Epicentre while cartographic code from Blue Marble "under the hood." Other benefits from Epicentre include Units of Measure, which now pervade OpenWorks and POSC reference values. Looking to the future Landmark is very excited about the roll out of Oracle 8 which will ship in the next major release of OpenWorks. Oracle 8 promises significant improvement in the handling of bulk data. Object extensions should simplify projection process although it is considered a pity that Oracle have not implemented inheritance in their object model.

Landmark's new found position as fervent advocate of all things POSCian may come as a surprise to regular readers of PDM and indeed Sherman put the foregoing into context with a few caveats. Firstly, Landmark's clients' requirements are often such that performance is a very critical issue. One Western Canadian client required population of OpenWorks with 300,000 wells at one go. This was to have taken 6 months loading until "non-compliant" direct access to the tables was implemented. These techniques bypass the API, DAE and everything. "This is a generic problem. You cannot solve this from the model standpoint" Sherman stated.

A largish Landmark site may involve 100 GB of well log data and 10 M shotpoints. Client requirements are typically for sub second load time and sub millisecond access time per entity. Currently a read of 5 well logs/sec is perceived as too slow as is a load of 15s/log. Questioned on the preferred entry point to OW - the politically correct DAE or the proprietary although "free" API. Sherman pointed out that the DAE type access was too low level for most programmers and consequently Landmark recommends and supports the API entry point.

Landmark have developed a bi-directional, pushbutton link from an Epicentre datastore to OpenWorks. A GIS basemap is used to initiate transfer with views to both Epicentre and OpenWorks. A Theme is created in both and data for transfer is selected. ArcView Avenue code is used to invoke the link. Transfer can be performed from the GIS or in a batch processes running overnight. Topics included in the link are - well header, stratigraphic unit, directional survey etc. LGC have "put this product together in a vacuum" and are asking for expression of interest from POSC members. Is there anyone out there with an Epicentre database who would like to hook it up with OpenWorks?

Generally Landmark appear to be victims of the success of the global vision provided by Open Explorer. Whereas in the past clients would build local or semi-regional projects in OpenWorks, they are now making more intensive use of their data. In the North Sea, Landmark clients are building seismic maps of the graben, or in US inputting 10 million wells at once. This led Sherman to drum home the message about performance. "No one is interested in POSC per se! It is just a means to get there faster better and cheaper". Landmark's requirements must equate to the pressure from users to integrate applications and provide large scale data model coverage. The data model "must be accessible by common mortals" and ad hoc queries (straight to the tables and therefore deprecated by POSC) will always be necessary.