iCentre open for business

By Вen Li

Officials from the University of Calgary and Schlumberger Oilfield Services opened the iCentre in the CCIT building on Fri., June 6. The iCentre will allow scientists and members of industry to visualize data in three dimensions.


The 30-foot wide by 10-foot tall facility immerses a user alone or with an audience into a virtual 3-D environment through the use of stereoscopic projections and polarizing glasses. The iCentre consists of $15 million in assets, much of which was donated by Schlumberger.


"The iCentre is a decision and control environment," said Schlumberger Information Systems’ Kevin Bradford. "It’s a collaborative environment with people interacting with the data in an intuitive positive manner."


Bradford added that the iCentre would allow experts working in different places to collaborate in working with a set of data, as is done with similar industrial installations of visualization environments.


Schlumberger’s GeoMarket Manager for Canada, Catherine Hughes, said the iCentre would help with two major issues facing the oil industry.


"One, there is too much data out there to transform into decisions," she said. "The second problem we hope to solve through the iCentre is to attract young talent to the industry."


Dr. Art Smith, Chair of the CCIT Advisory Board and former Chairman and CEO of SNC Lavalin said that improved visualization of geological data could revolutionize the oil and gas industry.


"It will change seriously the method by which we discover oil and natural gas," he said. "I think the future of this technology is wonderful, it eliminates much of the guesswork."


U of C Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department Head Dr. Gordon Moore was pleased with the new iCentre and the potential for academic discoveries.


"It will be a tremendous platform for doing many things: visualizing joints, phase envelopes, or landing planes on ships," he said.

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