Voxler automation allows you to easily create a professional-looking 3D map of your wells

Transcription

1 Easily Automate Displaying Well Paths in Voxler Voxler automation allows you to easily create a professional-looking 3D map of your wells Voxler is a great tool for creating unique 3D visualizations of your data. Through the user interface, you can quickly visualize and examine your data. However, if you frequently produce visualizations using similar data, the repetitive steps to create these visualizations can be tedious. Fortunately, Voxler comes with a program called Scripter for developing and running scripts in a Visual BASIC-like language. Using Scripter can improve the speed and consistency with which you creating visualizations in Voxler. Scripter, an automation program that is installed with Voxler, can ease the burden of creating multiple and/or in-depth visualizations, by allowing you to run commands automatically, instead of manually performing actions in the user interface. You can do almost everything with a script that you can do manually with the mouse or from the keyboard Scripter also has an easy-to-use window interface, and includes Help and debugging tools. To use scripts in Voxler, it is helpful to understand how the script is formatted and how Voxler is using the script to create the three-dimensional model of the well paths. Below, each portion of the script is presented to describe how Scripter is using these commands to perform actions in Voxler. Download the script and associated data files here.

2 The example script plots the three-dimensional well paths of a set of wells from data in an Excel file and renders the well paths with sample values from the Titanium dioxide (Ti0 2 ) log data. The Excel file is formatted with the following sheets which contain the well information: Collars Table: well ID, surface XY location, surface elevation, and measured depth. Trajectories Table: well ID, measured depth, azimuth, inclination Samples Table: well ID, from depth, to depth, sample concentration values Below is a description how to run the script, and a description of each portion of the script to help you better understand how the script is formatted and what each action each command performs in the user interface. Run the Script: 1) Run Voxler as an administrator by right clicking on the desktop icon and selecting Run as Administrator. This will set the path to Voxler in your registry, so other programs know where to find it. Right click on the Scripter.exe file, typically located in C:\Program Files\Golden Software\Voxler 3\Scripter and choose Run as Administrator. Now Voxler and Scripter will know where to find each other. 2) Use the File Open command, or click the open folder icon ( ) and load the downloaded script 3) Use the Script Run command, or press the play button ( ) to run the script. After the script is done running, a model of the three-dimension well paths along with log information will be displayed for six wells, as shown in the image below. The next section steps through this process.

3 Example WellRender created in Voxler using automation. Script Description: The script header information is a common place to leave comments which describe the script. The header shown below is created by adding a leading single-quote ( ) to create a comment out of any information in that line. Comments are shown in green in Scripter. In the example below, the header contains information about what the script will do. This script will import data from three Excel sheets and use that data to compile the information needed to create well objects, called nodes in Voxler. This script contains a leading function named, VoxlerApplication(), which is used to open and create a new Voxler project. This command checks to find an open instance of Voxler on your computer, and if one is not present, it opens a new Voxler project for you. The GetObject function activates an existing instance of Voxler and returns the reference to the Application object to the script. The CreateObject

4 function creates a new instance of Voxler if one is not found, and also returns the reference to the Application object to the script. The next section of the script is the Sub Main function. The Sub Main function is required in Voxler, and contains the primary components of the script. You can see on line 28 that the script calls the leading function VoxlerApplication() to check for and open and instance of Voxler. It is also necessary to make the Voxler application visible using the VoxlerApp.Visible = True command. It is also important to access the CommandApi object, which contains all of the properties of the modules in the Voxler program. Using the CommandApi object requires accessing the property with the Construct method, specifying any settings with the Option method, and making the action with the Do or DoOnce method.

5 The CommandApi.Construct method tells Voxler which command to execute, similar to double-clicking a command in the Module Manager in the GUI. In this example, the script uses the CommandApi.Construct command in Voxler to create a new instance of Voxler (shown above). and also to use the File Import command (shown below). After Voxler creates a new document, the CommandApi.Construct( Import ) command is used to import well data from an Excel file (SampleWellData 2.xlsx). The options for the command are able to be accessed using the CommandApi.Option method. In order to perform the command in Voxler using a script, you must also include the CommandApi.Do command as shown in the example above. When you use the Do method, the command is added to the Edit Undo list in Voxler if you need to undo the action at a later time. Using the Import command for each sheet in the file, Voxler compiles this data and uses it to display the well information in a three-dimensional model. Below are the steps used to run the script so you can display your well data as a three-dimensional well model. The series of CommandApi objects shown above loads the collars information for the wells into the WellData module in Voxler. To display the well paths and log data, we will need to again use the CommandApi.Construct ( Import ) command to append the well trajectories and log data to the WellData module.

6 After adding the well paths and logs, this script adds a bounding box around the wells to show the extent of the data. To do this, you will need to create a new module CommandApi.Construct ( CreateModule ) and attach it to the source data (WellData module). To display the wells themselves in Voxler, you will need to create a WellRender module to display the well paths. The command to create a default WellRender is show below. Further customization of the Well Render is needed to display the well trajectories and sample data. Using the WellRender module will display the well paths as straight lines, rather than showing the wells with deviation. To add the deviation paths to the wells, you will need to set the WellDataPathMethod for the WellData module as shown below. When setting the WellDataPathMethod, you have the option to set computation method used to compute the well trajectories. You can choose the following methods to calculate the well trajectories: Average Angle (0) - Averaged angle is used over the course of the borehole. Balanced Tangential (1) - Inclination at the top and bottom of the well is calculated and combined in sine or cosine functions and then averaged.

7 Minimum Curvature (2) - Assumes that the borehole follows the smoothest possible circular arc between points. This method is very similar to the Balanced Tangential Method, with each result multiplied by a ratio factor. Tangential (3) - Uses the inclination and direction measured at the lower end of the borehole, assuming the borehole path is straight throughout the course. Each method creates a mathematical approximation of the true X, Y, and Z value along the well path. Each technique is used in different circumstances. For additional information on these methods, refer to: Crain's Petrophysical Handbook at "Bulletin on Directional Drilling Survey Calculation Methods and Terminology," American Petroleum Institute (API) Bulletin D20, December 31, The script up to this point will plot the well logs with their trajectories, but without additional sample information. The Voxler model will display as shown below. When running the full script, the script will pause at this view for 5 seconds using the Wait(5) command. Beyond this point, the script also performs the following actions: Renders the well paths with the values from the Titanium dioxide (Ti0 2 ) log data.

8 Sets the well top elevations and displays the well name at the top of each well. Set the view to Front and fit the view to the size of the Voxler window. You can review the attached script to see that commands that are used to further format the Voxler model to display the WellData module as shown below: Scripter makes creating Voxler models more efficient by allowing you to run commands automatically, instead of performing those commands manually in the user interface. The Help includes a Voxler Automation Help book that makes it easy to locate and use commands. The Help also contains examples of each command so that you can understand how to use it in a script. Using the Help and the Scripter debugging features, your script will be creating publication-quality three-dimensional models in no time. For additional assistance with this data, or using this script, please feel free to contact Golden Software Support via the Support Central website, or Voxler Support for additional assistance:. For additional information about automation, and a few tips and tricks for working with automation, review this newsletter article: Issue 71 Automation Debugging Tips and Tricks