38 DAtA pRocESSinG & intERpREtAtion
Accelerating 3D seismic data
analysis on desktop workstations
eophysicists often say that they interactively visualising the results of the analysis
A new range of
could work better and find more oil process, rather than just being used in the
graphical processors
and gas if they had access to faster background to speed up computations.
can bring server
G
computers on their desktop. Until
cluster performance now, intensive processing tasks had to be sent
Using the GPU
onto the desktop for
off to a server cluster, returned and the results FfA’s latest release of SVI Pro uses the GPU in
under $10 000. Keith
visualised on a desktop workstation. three different ways:
Forward reports.
Now, for around $10 000, you can get the
1. For general visualisation
speed of a small cluster in a desktop machine,
2. For interactive (visual) computing
Eine neue Reihe
by using the untapped potential of the GPU
3. For GPU accelerated volume processing
Grafikprozessoren
(Graphics Processing Unit). A machine with
kann für weniger als
four high end GPUs from NVIDIA has up to four A distinction is made between Primary
10.000 USD
teraflops of processing power, equivalent to GPUs, which are used for visualisation and
Servercluster-Leistung around 60 of the fastest CPUs. are connected to a screen, and one or more
auf Desktops
Having that sort of computing power on your Secondary GPUs that are either not connected to
herbeizaubern. Ein
desktop opens up huge possibilities for software a screen or by design cannot connect to one.
Bericht von Keith
developers. General visualisation refers to the 2D and 3D
Forward.
Stephen Purves, Technical Director at Foster visualisation and volume rendering capabilities
Findlay Associates (ffA), a developer of 3D that have always been available within SVI Pro.
Una nueva gama de
seismic image processing technology for the The workstation’s Primary GPU(s) are used for
procesadores gráficos
oil and gas industry, believes the power of the visualisation.
es capaz de trasladar
GPU will be a game changer for seismic analysis Interactive computing refers to the process
las prestaciones de un applications of running algorithms directly on the Primary
clúster de servidores
The latest release of its Windows-based GPU(s) to compute data and send these results
hasta el mismo
3D seismic image analysis and visualisation directly to the screen for immediate visualisation,
escritorio, y por menos
application, SVI Pro 2009, features an Interactive such as in the IFC tool.
de 10.000 dólares.
Facies Classification (IFC) module that allows the The IFC and other interactive computing tools
Keith Forward informa.
user to see the results of what they are doing in are described as being ‘GPU enabled’ meaning
real time (Fig. 1). results are computed interactively on slices and
The IFC is a GPU enabled module that horizons and displayed immediately in real time.
performs computations interactively, on time GPU accelerated volume processing refers to
slices on horizons of data. A user can load the process of using the GPU to run a SVI Pro
multiple seismic attributes and run classification process over a 3D volume, recover the results and
jobs very interactively,
moving through the 3D
volume in real time.
“We’ve been wanting to
do this for years but it has
never been practical before,
the interface was always
too clunky,” says Purves.
“There was a lot of waiting
around with progress bars
on the screen.”
“Now we perform
calculations in the time it
takes to stream data from
disk.”
This is the first time that Fig. 1. SVI Pro 2009’s Interactive Facies Classification module is user
GPU accelerated processing centric, interpreter driven and makes interactive 3D seismic facies
has been used in this way, discrimination possible across large seismic datasets.
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