Fakespace Systems and SGI provide visualization facility for Murphy Oil Company
OCTOBER 23--Fakespace Systems Inc. (Kitchener, Ont., Canada; www.fakespacesystems.com) and SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.sgi.com) have provided a state-of-the-art visualization system to Murphy Oil Company Ltd. (Calgary, Canada), a division of Murphy Oil Corp. The system enables geologists, geophysicists, and engineers to work together in a collaborative visualization environment. Murphy Oil selected the SGI Reality Center visualization facility based on Onyx2 systems and an 8 x 16-ft Fakespace Systems WorkWall as the optimal visualization system for its application requirements.
"In many of our active offshore exploration projects, we are dealing with extremely large amounts of volumetric data," said Duncan W. McMaster, general manager, East Coast Exploration, at Murphy Oil. "The new visualization center improves our ability to understand these huge data sets and speeds our ability to make effective drilling decisions."
A key feature of the system, according to McMaster, is the ability for groups to work with seismic data in a truly collaborative environment, instead of a more passive, theater-type setting. The custom-designed system developed by Fakespace Systems and SGI provides an extremely bright (5000 lumens per projector) display that allows participants to work with stereoscopic subsurface simulations in a well-lit room where they can also reference notes, printouts, and drawings.
The graphics power of the SGI supercomputer provides real-time rendering of highly complex three-dimensional deep-water data. The high-resolution, rear-projected WorkWall display enables the exploration team to gather close to the screen for discussion and inspection of minute details within these massive visualizations. The display is based on two active stereo digital light-processing projectors (the Mirage 5000 from Christie Digital) that provide a bright, stable display for dimensionally accurate viewing, even when working very close to the screen. The two-projector system also enables simultaneous viewing of both stereoscopic and monoscopic images projected side by side. A single-pipe SGI Onyx2 system with two Raster Managers, four CPUs, and 8 Gbytes of RAM powers the display.