On-screen: the Irap 2 user interface with a 3D reservoir model and the 2D editor.
The first commercial version of the Irap 2 geological modeling system should be introduced early next year. Geomatic Software in Oslo expects the new computer program to gradually supersede its popular predecessor, Irap 1. The latter should be entirely phased out by 1998.
Geomatic is marketing the new software in combination with the fully integrated Irap Reservoir Modeling system (Irap-RMS). "Irap 2 introduces a new generation mapping and digital terrain modeling system," says Kai Heggelund who is responsible for exploration technology products at Geomatic.
An object-oriented user interface ensures that the correct input data is employed for the appropriate operations. Advanced tasks such as gridding, construction of non-vertical fault-models, volumetrics, depth conversion and plotting of maps are made easy and can be performed in the intuitive way.
The program guides the user through the different steps in modeling surfaces. The production line of a typical mapping project is built into the new system. It is not necessary to be an expert user to handle Irap2 and make a good geological model.
When developing the new system, Geomatic received feedback and funding from Amerada Hess, Norsk Hydro, Neste Petroleum and Saga Petroleum. The project was also co-funded through a Norwegian Research Council development programme, KAPOF, which was concluded this March.
Sintef Informatics contributed gridding algorithms and numerical tools. The gridding algorithms cover many different methods in order to handle a whole range of input data such as seismic line and well information.
Most of the methods are designed for making regular grids, but it is also possible to perform triangulations and to make composed surfaces in structurally complex areas with substantial faulting. In the fault modeling module, already existing in RMS, users are provided with an efficient tool to produce fault surfaces which can be used as input to the surface gridding.
The system works currently in a Silicon Graphic and Sun Sparc environment. An IBM mainframe version will be introduced later this year.
"Irap 1 has been one of the most widely geological modeling systems on the Norwegian shelf since the mid-1980s, and is now also used in the US and UK," says Heggelund. Geomatic opened offices in Houston and London last year and will increase its marketing and technical support efforts in these and other areas outside Norway.
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