SBIR Phase II: Grid Computing for Energy Exploration and Development

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop a grid-enabled environment where large multidimensional seismic data sets can be rapidly accessed, visualized, and interpreted by geographically dispersed users with heterogeneous local resources. The proposed work will transform the Phase I prototype into production-ready commercial quality software, and demonstrate it on 3-D seismic data. The key technical innovations of the Phase II project are (1) a multi-resolution data visualizer, (2) a data-staging tool, and (3) a multi-channel collaboration tool to support collaborative visualization and data analysis on the grid. The proposed technology will allow multiple users to share and interact with multidimensional grid-dispersed data sets, while viewing independent multiple renderings with resolutions and bandwidths commensurate to their local display and network capabilities. The proposed technology will be enabled by implementing several grid services, and a virtual file system, that make grid deployed data sets appear local to the user. This implementation comprises the bulk of the technical tasks, and leverages the middleware. The immediate outcome of the Phase II project will be a version of Internet Seismic Processing production software (INSP) with specialized features for remote visualization, data staging, and collaborative analysis of seismic images on the grid. The ultimate objective of the Phase II project is a commercial grid-enabled software product providing scientific data, services, computing power, and visualization on demand, not only to the oil and gas industry but to a much wider range of application areas, such as geographic information systems, education, medical imaging, and battlefield management. The product will push the limits of what can be done, and fully contribute to a new business paradigm, made possible by the advent of the grid, allowing businesses to concentrate on their core competencies and rely on other entities for grid-enabled context technologies, without deterring from their primary objectives. The outcome of Phase II will be a commercial implementation and utilization of the grid, and the toolkit, which up until now, has been used mostly in academic and research applications. This technology will first be commercialized in a strategically important economic sector; namely, for the exploration of new energy resources. Specific to U.S. energy needs, this unique application of high end information technology to an area of economic and national importance will ultimately open up new exploration venues in extremely complicated geological conditions, leading to new discoveries, and decreasing US dependence on imported oil.