**issue 41 dec 2000 PRINTER - EPCC - University of Edinburgh

Charting unknown territory
GORDON DARLING
It happens every day. There you are, sitting in your boat, bobbing about in the
North Sea and trying to decide where to start drilling for oil...
OK, it's not common for most of us but it is an important
problem faced by oil and gas exploration companies. Prior to
commencing a drilling programme it is paramount that the
companies are confident of the existence and location of
reservoirs of oil and of the identity of materials located far below
the seabed.
EPCC has started a 20-week project with Radar World Ltd, an
East Lothian company that has spent 20 years developing
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology for the identification
of materials and material properties. GPR technology measures
the reflection and absorption imagery of objects from
electromagnetic frequencies and deals with the high energy
response functions of the material in question. Specialised
software provides an unambiguous identification of the material.
The common theme of Radar World's
business is the design,
manufacture and testing of
novel pre-production
prototypes, suitable
for identifying a
range of materials.
Oil and gas
exploration is one market
for Radar World's
products but several
alternative application
Sub-surface objects are
identified via Radar World's
Ground Penetrating Radar
technology.
areas have been identified. For instance, the material
identification procedure is entirely non-invasive, which makes it
suitable for medical and biological applications and in the food
and drink industry.
Our project entails the construction of a graphical user interface
(GUI) for Radar World's current suite of GPR software. This
Java-based software will provide Radar World with an MS
Windows based product to create a sub-surface mapping system
for use in oil and gas exploration. The GUI will provide a menu
system leading the user through a series of modules from setting
scanning parameters and capturing the data to displaying
scanned images and material identification. The GUI will also
provide a web interface to Radar World's database of
previously identified materials and the mechanism for a user to
submit typecasting requests to Radar World.
Throughout the development of the GUI, EPCC will collaborate
with Radar World to ensure the product provides the full range
of functionality required by field engineers. A major advantage
of the adoption of an object-oriented approach is that the rapid
prototyping of the GUI is facilitated. This greatly enhances the
level of customer interaction during a product's initial
development stages. In particular, it is possible to demonstrate
non-functional versions of a GUI to the customer and to gain
valuable feedback on its suitability and usage. In turn, this
information can be incorporated in a revised version of the
product. Further, a modular approach to the GUI design will
allow the GUI to be readily tailored to suit alternative
applications of the GPR code.
The GUI that EPCC will produce for Radar World's software will
make its product of immediate value in the field. The provision of
the GUI will vastly reduce the complexity of running Radar
World's software and it is anticipated that it will
contribute significantly to an uptake of Radar World's
products throughout the oil and gas industry.
No more bobbing about in boats, then.
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