Standardization brings many benefits to the oil and gas industry. The established WITSML standard and the coming OSDU data platform both facilitate easier access, integration, processing, and sharing of data. Leading industry software tools from Schlumberger and Landmark have become de facto standards for acquiring, managing, and analyzing data. Software products like CoViz 4D from Dynamic Graphics, Inc. leverage these data and software standards to make it easier for management teams to combine, visualize, and analyze data, combating the challenges often presented by discipline-specific software packages.
Discipline-Specific Software Packages Have Inherent Limitations
Despite all the power and convenience many of these standards and software packages provide (any petroleum professional with years of experience recognizes the value of these products), users often discover inherent limitations. Decisions of how to deploy the underlying software functionality are determined by the software vendor as they strike a balance between usability and flexibility. In many software packages, the standard workflows and applications provided don’t address many of the unique needs of users.
While users have come to appreciate standardized software interfaces many users require access to underlying software functionality in a more tailored way. They want the ability to execute workflows and analyze data to meet their company-specific directives and requirements.
The Power of Python and Jupyter Notebooks
A popular approach to addressing this need is the use of scripting languages like Python. Python is a high-level programming language with a simple-to-use syntax that facilitates rapid application development. Its scripting capabilities can connect existing components to create workflows that can easily be modified and reused.
To further benefit from the power of Python scripts, many petroleum professionals are employing Jupyter Notebooks. They are a web browser-based format for recording computer code (frequency Python scripts), the results of running that code, and importantly, text comments and images designed to add context to the code’s operation. The notebooks do this in a way far more approachable and readable than typical computer code. With Jupyter Notebooks, users can create self-documenting workflows in minutes, share them among asset teams, and easily customize them to solve problems unique to their areas of responsibility.
CoViz 4D Exploits Data Standardization in the Oil and Gas Industry
CoViz 4D offers the industry-leading software solution for dynamic visual analytics for reservoir surveillance and management. It provides a means for asset team members to access information simultaneously from many standardized datasets and applications in a flexible viewing environment without the need for specific knowledge of where the information is stored, or how to run the software that generated the information.
CoViz 4D easily integrates datasets—seismic volumes and attributes, reservoir simulations, wellbore data, fluid production, microseismic and monitoring data, and remote sensing imagery—from a wide range of software packages, and applies an extensive set of statistical, analytic, and visualization algorithms to give petroleum professionals a more detailed understanding of reservoir structures and conditions.
Along with CoViz 4D, DGI provides a Python Developers Toolkit with more than 240 command line modules that have Python “wrappers” to use within a Python-based development environment. Using Jupyter Notebooks, petroleum professionals can incorporate CoViz 4D modules to create workflows that solve their unique analytic and visualization needs. CoViz 4D allows asset teams to take advantage of data and application standardization in the oil and gas industry and extract even greater value from these sources.
CoViz 4D allows asset teams to take advantage of data and application standardization in the oil and gas industry and extract even greater value from these sources.
Leverage The Power of Python and Jupyter Notebooks
The combination of the Jupyter Notebook and Python Developers Toolkit provides a wide range of data management, and analytic capabilities, including data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, and data visualization.
Using the Jupyter Notebook environment, petroleum professionals create scripts that incorporate DGI Python Developers Toolkit modules to access the required datasets (managed by the CoViz 4D data registry), apply specific analytic functions and formulas to the data, and produce the results of the analysis. The types of workflows and analyses that can be executed may include:
- calculate points that lie along the top of a horizon;
- using toolkit formulas and procedures to recalculate reservoir attributes based on updated production data;
- running successive simulations and visualizing the result of each simulation to depict reservoir evolution over time; and
- smoothing seismic horizons and attributes by filtering random noise from a dataset.
Once created, Jupyter Notebook scripts are linked to the “decision support” data type in the data registry for access by asset team members. The combination of Jupyter Notebooks and DGI Python Developers Toolkit modules provide a powerful means to:
- Easily share analysis and methodology across an asset team or enterprise to leverage the work of other professionals.
- Show exactly how analytic results were achieved, in the event there are any questions from management teams regarding the analysis.
- Start from a script for a previously solved, similar problem, make appropriate modifications to solve a new problem.
Analysts can also incorporate other standardized tools such as Matlab and R into Jupyter Notebook scripts, providing a best-of-breed approach to analyzing data and solving specific problems. The ability to apply the appropriate calculation methods, whether from the Python Developers Toolkit, Matlab, or R to industry-standard datasets accessible via CoViz 4D, gives asset teams analytic and visualization capability well beyond what standard vendor packages can provide.
Synergy: CoViz 4D, Python and Jupyter Notebooks
The combination of CoViz 4D, Python Developers Toolkit, and Jupyter Notebooks gives petroleum professionals an unsurpassed ability to exploit data and application standardization in the oil and gas industry to their benefit. “Thinking outside the black box” with respect to how workflows are created and executed gives petroleum professionals the agility and flexibility required to remain competitive and innovative, even in the most challenging economic conditions.
CoViz 4D, a data visualization analytics software from Dynamic Graphics, Inc., gives oil and gas professionals the ability to leverage Python and Jupyter Notebook capabilities. Powerful data integration capabilities enable you to explore data relationships and apply the best analytic tools to better understand reservoir conditions and confidently make development decisions to maximize recovery and reduce operational risk. To learn more about CoViz 4D contact our team.