ARCO and MechDyne Advance Immersive Visualization Technology


PLANO, Texas, June 11, 1999 (PRIMEZONE) -- ARCO (NYSE: ARC) and MechDyne are creating the world's first rapidly reconfigurable Immersive Visualization Environment (IVE) which offers the potential for large groups to work at reducing overall cycle time from discovery of hydrocarbons through to production, ARCO's Geoffrey Dorn, Director of Visualization Technology, said today.

Speaking at the SGI Oil and Gas Visualization Summit in Helsinki, Dorn said the advanced system expands on the advantages of the original IVE where up to 5 people can work by easily adding the ability to offer a semi-immersive theater for presentations to 20 to 30 people. Engineering design for the new system is complete and is currently being fabricated and installed in ARCO's technology center in Plano. The system is scheduled to be opened in mid-July, 1999.

Presentations to larger groups have typically been accommodated in Visionariums that have a curved screen and immersion is achieved by engaging peripheral vision with the large screen. The one optimum viewing location is the center of the screen, and these systems lack the full immersive visualization of the IVE. The curved screen makes straight lines appear curved for observers at any position other than the optimum viewing location. The presenter may cast a shadow on the data being highlighted because it is front-projected onto the screen.

"This is a significant improvement over the traditional Visionarium used for larger group presentations. For ARCO, immersive visualization is changing the way we approach exploration and the development of hydrocarbon resources," said Dorn. "This gives us a further step in looking at the data in a truly 3-D fashion and makes it possible to bring our key disciplines together on a project. It is also provides significant cost savings.""

The reconfigurable flat-screen immersive environment allows one facility to satisfy the needs of the small working group and the semi-immersive presentation to larger groups. With the rear-projection and flat screens of the IVE, straight lines appear straight and it is possible to move toward the screen without casting a shadow on the data. The IVE uses head- and hand-tracking systems that make it possible to move in and out of the data, even in the open configuration, which creates a greater sense of immersion than the Visionarium.

MechDyne Corporation is an engineering and scientific research company specializing in turnkey immersive visualization hardware and software solutions. ARCO chose MechDyne Corporation for the engineering and manufacture of the reconfigurable system because of MechDyne's extensive experience in design, manufacture, and system integration of flat screen immersive visualization environments. The MechDyne system design makes it possible for two people to reconfigure the facility in one hour.

ARCO has been an industry leader in 3-D visualization for the last 10 years. In 1997, the company opened the first spatially immersive room in the oil industry and was the first to use this technology to revolutionize the way prospective sites are explored, evaluated and developed. The IVE is now being regularly used for exploration, development and drilling planning for ARCO's worldwide operations.

The IVE projects 3-D seismic data stereoscopically on three walls and the floor. The data are projected in three dimensions, filling the IVE and immersing the observer in the reservoir prospect. The explorationist can walk into the 3-D volume and interpretation, and the drilling planner can walk across a reservoir horizon, and create or change a proposed well path. The IVE can also improve seismic acquisition planning, interpretation, drilling planning, reservoir management and resource management by allowing technical workers to virtually reach out and touch faults and hydrocarbon traps, and to better see what is under the earth's surface before they invest in expensive drilling operations.



            

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