Here at WhiteStar we are committed to ongoing updates of our data to put out the best possible digital cartographic products.   The Texas Land Survey updates for Q1 2010 have been completed.  Following is a summary of layer updates and additions:

Blocks - 10
Surveys - 471
Abstract - 535

Overlapping Blocks - 17
Overlapping Surveys - 75
Overlapping Abstract - 86

Hemphill and Jefferson Counties realized the most changes.  In addition, portions of  Brazos, Denton, Duval, Hardin, Harris, Harrison, Robertson, Shelby, Terry, Wheeler and Wilbarger Counties show updates.  Keep an eye on the blog for additional data update announcements.

Thanks,
Mike

The Downside of “Free”
Maps and charts are the lifeblood of the oil and gas industry and most petroleum executives crave the ability to visualize exploration maps in a dashboard format. The advent of free applications such as Google Earth has made complex imagery available to everyone, and while this online tool has raised awareness of the “power of the image,” it have also created confusion. For example, one cannot judge the precision, vintage, spatial accuracy or resolution of a given image merely by inspection. “Where is that well we drilled last year?” you might reasonably ask. Having the answer to critical questions is essential before putting a map into the wild, lest you run the risk of losing a deal because of lack of due diligence. For the casual user of Google Earth, these are not concerns and therefore not talked about much. As professionals, though, we must ask these questions.

A picture is worth a thousand words
Virtually any source map can be scanned and tied to geographic coordinates to form an imagery data source. For imagery data to be useful in a Geographic Information System, however, it must be tied to coordinates and overlaid with other data such oil well or pipeline locations. Explorationists commonly use imagery in the form of an air photo, topographic map, or satellite image to add a sense of “ground truth” to their maps. Points, lines, and polygons in isolation simply do not convey the same sense of truth, even though they may be precisely placed. A picture is worth a thousand words. Given an air photo, an oil company executive can instantly see the location of wells and other infrastructure. The euphoria this creates is undeniable, but sometimes misplaced unless one has confidence in the underlying process that was used to acquire and process the data.

The potentially high cost of “free”
There are several “gotchas” associated with imagery and many points along the way where errors can be introduced. Free data sources do not provide sufficient information about an image, such as its production date and quality. Where does the recent imagery start and old imagery stop? If you zoom out in Google Earth, for example, you can see many strips of data of varying quality, color schemes, and vintage. Such information is critical for exploration companies. In addition, free map services tend to have updated data primarily in urban areas, because that’s what most people care about. Not so in the oil and gas industry where our infrastructure tends to be located in rural locations.

Data overload
Imagery data can quickly fill up local storage space, even on very large computers. As data resolution increases (and engineers always want the highest resolution data available) imagery fills up disk space exponentially faster. A consequence is that 30 centimeter resolution data requires nine times more storage space than the standard one meter resolution data of just a few years ago. This trend is unlikely to change.

Because different client applications require data in different formats, on today’s servers you’ll find multiple versions of the same data in different formats just burning up disk space. Imagery management quickly becomes a mess when dealing in terabytes and IT staff spends more and more time documenting inventory, allocating server space, and updating ever larger databases when they could be focusing on revenue enhancing activities.

Third party services have evolved to address these problems, taking on the tasks of maintaining the expanding imagery database so that it can be streamed directly to oil and gas applications. For now, this involves loading the various imagery data sets and establishing web services that client applications can consume. Clients can offload internal proprietary imagery to a third party vendor and have that data streamed back into the company. This web service reduces the burden on corporate IT, saving time and money.

The future of imagery
In the future, organizations will likely take advantage of evolving technologies such as Cloud Computing with its nearly infinite computing and storage capabilities. Challenges will include uploading and downloading vast amounts of data, including rapidly changing proprietary data sets. However, the computational power of the cloud environment will offer many benefits including speed of access and the ability to use Extract, Transform and Load technologies to reformat data “on the fly.”

Free maps have popularized geospatial imagery, but they simply don’t offer the quality, robustness, or versatility needed for modern scientific exploration. The vision of the future is to store and maintain dynamic, up-to-date, multi-terabyte imagery databases on the cloud and speedily stream that data back into the enterprise for near real time analysis and decision making. The good news is that this future isn’t all that far away.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! As promised we have added more great 1 meter imagery data to our collection. This time we have added Colorado and New Mexico. If you’re working in these areas, this imagery would make a fantastic backdrop to any project. Let us know if you have a need for this layer.

I have fielded a few tech support calls recently, which have brought to my attention that Petra has made some changes to their coordinate system parameters.  When starting a new project within Petra, typically the first step is to set the Map Projection Settings to display the data in the desired XY coordinate system.  Please notice that with the latest release of Petra Version 3.2.0.1 (10.29.2008), you now have the option, from the Map Projection Settings window, to display imported data using a Standard or Custom coordinate system.  If reviewing the details of the Currently Applied Projection, the windows will appear as such:  Standard and Custom.

When loading WhiteStar survey data, you will want to set your Map Projection Settings using the Custom option.  After clicking the Custom switch, you will then have the ability to set your display projection to UTM, State-Plane, Polyconic, etc… Typically, WhiteStar delivers survey, culture & well data in Lat/Long NAD27 coordinates for the Petra user; so this coordinate system discussion applies to the end users needs for map display only.

-Jeff Smith

Client Services

(303) 781-5182 x.115

In line with trying to be a bit of a resource, I put together this email focused on the lack of understanding revolving around the use of shape files.

If you’re using shape files for Petra, Geographix or SMT please read on. If you’re using ArcGIS, please disregard.

The best advice I can give here is use the right format for your software. Choose a true well spotting grid that enables you to calculate from footages or quarter calls. Build a truly accurate map for your native software that labels properly and displays properly. It is a lot harder (and impossible in some cases) to do the above using a shape file.

If you make maps and understand the facts about your data. These should include the source, finding out who maintains and creates the data, and the accuracy and precision.

As the Crocodile Hunter would say, “You should always know and respect the environment you are working within”.

If you don’t know the answer, give me a call on 303-781-5182 and I’ll try and help you out.

Cheers,

Anthony