American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2015 - 151

who monitor the geopolitical situation
wherever the company has operations.
The center combines news feeds, mapping
and security datasets, he comments. The
goal is to manage physical assets and
people proactively.
Network Visualization
Fast decisions can be difficult to make
in upstream oil and gas operations because
of all the players involved. Compounding
that challenge is the tremendous amount
of data distributed across disparate disciplines, from geology to production engineering, drilling operations and outsourced services.
"IP (Internet Protocol) network visualization is a great innovation for these
situations," offers Steven Lutz, senior
sales manager for Christie, which provides
visualization displays and audio technology solutions.
With IP network visualization, multiple
data sources can be visualized simultaneously. For example, he says, a video
conference, subsurface model, and spreadsheet shared from various sources can
be presented together. Everyone in the
collaboration sees everything at the same
time, improving decision-making processes, Lutz adds.
"Rather than the old hard-wired connections into the visualization center,
companies can have virtual connections,"
he explains.
Input and output nodes are added,
creating an ecosystem with input coming
from anywhere. Behind the scenes, network nodes encode data as H.264 and
decode it for presentation on the wall or
elsewhere. "This flexible approach reduces
reaction time tremendously," observes
Lutz.
He illustrates, "Geologists gathered
in the visualization center can have a
model on the screen along with a video
conference to the field and drilling data
provided by the service company. Someone in the room can add data from his
laptop and someone in the field can see
it on his tablet."
This approach also allows new data
sources to be added easily, Lutz points
out. Production monitoring centers, for
example, can add network-based cameras
to their visualization environment, he
says. Special processors enable the secure
and efficient transfer of this data to centers
where operators can switch between cameras as needed.
Wireless collaboration technology connects multiple devices with multiple content to the visualization wall. "One of
the last things people want in their hightech collaboration suites is cabling for
telephones, audio and computer connec-

The "visionarium" located in Marathon Oil Corporation's headquarters in Houston is a
collaborative, multidiscipline immersive environment set up for a maximum of 50 people.
It allows participants to view data on a 27- by 8-foot curved screen powered by two
Christie Mirage HD6 projectors and a Christie Spyder video processor.

tions," Lutz emphasizes.
Instead, he says, companies are using
wireless technologies and built-in audio
to keep rooms clean and enhance interactions.
"The generation coming out of college
uses tablets and phones for everything,"
Lutz observes. "They want to be able to
drag something from their devices onto
the visualization wall. Nobody wants to
waste time figuring out how to do this
every time people meet in a huddle room.
"Users can even annotate content on
the wall, using touchscreen," he says,
noting that the marked-up image can be
e-mailed to everyone in the conference.
Reduced Footprint
Lutz says there has been a big shift in
the number of high-end units deployed.
"In the major oil companies, each business
unit now wants its own visualization facility," he comments, adding that companies are building many smaller rooms.
"We have come a long way from the
early days of oil and gas visualization
when Texaco developed its first reality
center," Lutz muses.
Although leading edge in the 1990s,
it now would be considered fairly rudimentary, he notes. It had three front projectors and a curved screen to create an
immersive feeling. "Centers like this took
a lot of facility space," Lutz says.
Display makers were pressured to narrow the space required and to create a
smaller footprint that preserved the high
resolution experience. "Now, with rearprojection systems, companies can have
the same or better experience with less
equipment space," Lutz says. "They can
choose among a variety of configurations
to suit their applications."

QuadHD panels provide another attractive way to reduce footprint. "One
major oil company has put in more than
150 of these panels in so-called hives for
geoscientists," he mentions. "Demand is
so great that people are coming in on the
weekends to get access."
In the future, interactive options should
reduce the analytical footprint as well,
Lutz opines. Tracking devices, gestures,
and touchscreen display are all tools to
remove barriers to efficient interaction.
At the same time, he says, software vendors are taking advantage of graphics
accelerators to leverage computing resources. This move, says Lutz, will speed
operations that today can frustrate users.
Higher refresh rates will improve image
quality as well.
Lutz says stereo visualization has
found its niche in supporting collaboration
and communication with nonspecialists.
He gives a geoscience example. "A geophysicist already sees everything in stereo
in his head," he says, "so there is no real
need to display it that way. When that
geophysicist needs to convince management, however, it really helps to show it
in stereo so other people grasp the concept
better."
Lutz estimates stereo is used 10-15
percent of the time.
To enable collaboration without creating a security issue, companies generally
choose to create their own secure networks
for raw data using dedicated fiber. "There
is always a concern in oil and gas companies about the security of their data,"
Lutz figures. "Many times companies
will create special networks separate from
their corporate networks for security reasons. These specialized networks support
security, improve performance, and get
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