BlueView Release Notes

Log Image Manipulation Software

New Features in Version 1.0.64

• Ability to make and load and save LZW compressed TIFF files.
• Drag and drop PDS and TIFF files onto the running program or onto program shortcuts.
• PDS to TIFF conversion window simplified and clarified for easier use.
• No longer asks for TIFF file names when opening PDS. Option to still do so added to Preferences.
• New Vertical Segmentation option. Current image can be replaced by just-selected segment. This speeds the workflow for single segment extractions.
• Segment Option list now available on Tools Menu. Was originally only on Preferences window, and seldom used.
• Improved Markup Table functions.
• Seldom used tool bar buttons moved to Tools and View menu to simply the interface.
• Preferences window list simplified and clarified for easier use.
• Segment splicing window has movable splitter between list of segments and preview area to improve usability.

System Requirements

Minimum hardware requirements:

• 500-MHz Intel Pentium or equivalent processor
• 500-Meg RAM or more recommended for viewing of large color images.
• 1-GB hard disk space
• 1024 × 768 graphics card (1280 × 1024 recommended)

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP
• Windows 2000 with SP5 or Later

Installing BlueView

Administrator account access or access with administrator privilege is required for installation. To install BlueView:

1. Run the installation kit EXE. It will be either a self-extracting executable or file named setup.exe.
2. Take the default options as suggested by the installation program unless you have a specific need to change them.
3. At the end of installation you may be asked to reboot your system. If so, do not use BlueView before rebooting.

General BlueView features

The main features of BlueView are:

• Log image viewing and manipulation power—Loaded images can be quickly scrolled to any portion. Open two or more images side by side, visually align them pixel by pixel, lock, and scroll them together. Immediately print them or save them as a single composite image with this alignment tool. Images can be zoomed. A Pan window allows total image review and fast movement to areas of interest. Auto width scaling fills the window width regardless of image DPI.

• Segmentation and reassembly of images—Images can graphically broken into smaller segments, then reassembled into new logs or combined as side-by-side log displays, with vertical depth matching.

• PDS to TIFF conversion—BlueView is primarily designed to work with Schlumberger PDS log graphic files. They are quickly converted to TIFF at user controlled resolution and loaded into BlueView for manipulation.

• Open common image files formats—Load virtually any TIFF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, or WMF image file—including those compressed with LZW compression—and other standard raster image files of any color depth or resolution. Mixed resolutions are compensated for when viewing, printing, and saving.

• Printing—Printing for the single or combined images to any windows supported printer at full, half, or any scaling. Printing to exact original or scaled dimensions is supported. Print preview is available.

• Annotation—Images can have many types of full color annotations applied that stay as editable objects, even after being saved. Specific well image markup tools to quickly place formation and various interval markers such as perforation, DST, and core can be depth indexed and placed directly on the image.

• Depth indexed markup—The log images can be depth indexed to allow for direct and accurate application of formation top markings, DST intervals, or any common graphic marker. Tables of markup items can be saved and retrieved for quick, efficient application.

• Image overlay—Two images can be overlaid with transparency for quick comparison. Black grid lines can be removed.

• Text to TIFF—Blocks of user-formatted text can be converted to TIFF image files and appended to log images. You can say all you want about the interpretation and decisions for the logs.

• DPI compensation—Image files of various dots per inch resolution (X and Y) can be combined and scaled to a common size.

• Well name and comments inclusion—The well name and other general comments can be added to the TIFF files for complete record keeping. The well name appears above the printed images. These comments are stored in the TIFF images.

• Saving—Images can be saved to any common raster format at any color depth and in several compressed formats. Images can also be placed on the windows clipboard for easy transfer to other programs.

Known Limitations and Issues

• Unsupported printers—Issues with certain printers under Win98 do not allow printing. The Canon BJC-80 and HP 4500 laser are two known printers that will not print. Most Epson printers will print correctly. No problems with any printers (including the Canon BJC-80 and HP 4500 laser) under WinNT or later have been noticed. Problem will be recognized by only a single page printing while all others are blank, or by a message that indicates this printer is incompatible with BlueView.

• Continuous Printing—Successful continuous printing of images without margin gaps will depend on the physical ability of the printer to print to the top and bottom of its pages and the related settings of its software drivers. Some experimentation may be necessary to achieve desired results. Continuous printing has been accomplished on Epson 1520/3000 Printrex 840 DL/DLG and HP wide plotters (650/750/1050, etc). Most printers that support “Banner” mode should be able to print continuously.

  BlueView lacks an option to control the pages that are printed but there are several workarounds:

1. Print a vertical segment
2. Turn on Vertical Segmentation. (icon on menu bar)
3. Click drag cursor to select log header—that segment opens in the Segment Preview window.
4. Click icon to print it from that window.
5. Repeat for the log interval of interest.
6. Splice two vertical segments to get a log section with headers (variant that splices the two components together)
7. Turn on Vertical Segmentation. (icon on menu bar)
8. Click drag cursor to select log header—that segment opens in the Segment Preview window.
9. Click icon to add it to the segment list 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the log interval of interest.
10. Open Segment window. (from icon on main panel)
11. Select both segments. (e.g. using Ctrl-click)
12. Click the 'Splice' icon.
13. Click the print icon. (or save the spliced image to disk and open with BlueView to print)
14. Print to a format such as PDF and then use Acrobat Reader to select the pages to print. Acrobat Writer, and some (free) alternatives such as PDF Creator, install "printer drivers" which actually capture the printout for saving to disk as a PDF file. You can print to such a PDF and then later print selected pages to a printer.

• Segment selection—During segmentation, when the user drags above or below the window, the image will scroll as long as the user continues to move the mouse slightly. If the mouse is held steady outside of the image window, the image will not scroll until the user supplies mouse input. This offers precise control of how much the image scrolls to prevent runaway scrolling on PCs with fast video.
  
  During segmentation, when the user drags below the window bottom, the image scrolls downward as described above. If the user then drags back upward past the TOP of the window, causing the image to then scroll upward, the resulting segment selection will not extend to the lowest dragged image position, but will begin from where the upward scrolling began. Always select a segment while dragging in one consistent direction (up or down) with only as much reverse movement that will not cause reverse image scrolling.

• Annotating long files—Certain annotations objects (lines, arrows, freehand line, open and closed polygons) placed using the a annotation tools may not burn into the image successfully if they are past the 32767th scan line of the image. This is about 437 inches down from the top a 75-DPI image. All annotations objects are properly saved and restored to their correct locations regardless of their position, it is only when they are made to become part of the image (“Burned in,” see the online help file top “Working with Annotations”) that the problem will occur.

• Other—Very large image files may require more memory than is available to load and display. A warning to this effect before an image is loaded or an out of memory message during loading should indicate when this will be a problem. Black-and-white files consume much less memory and are the best choice if color is not necessary.
  
  BlueView does not support multipage TIFF files.
  
  Resolution for error message “Unexpected error during BlueView Load. Error was: A form can’t be moved or sized while minimized or maximized.” This can occur when using Matrox Powerdesk-HF Desktop Management utility for Parahelia 128 multi-monitor setup. Solution: Change settings in Matrox Powerdesk-HF Desktop Management > Application > Specific Settings: Add BlueView and uncheck “Save/Restore window positions.”

Getting Started with BlueView

BlueView provides a native Windows interface from where users can view, annotate, segment, merge, convert, save, and print TIFF log image graphics.

To view PDS or TIFF image files:

• Select the File / Open option in the menu bar.
• Select a PDS or TIF file from list of files and select Open.
• Optionally drag and drop PDS or TIF files onto Blueview or shortcut icon
• Optionally double click TIF or PDS files if files with these extensions are associated to the BlueView application (optional)

To annotate a loaded image file:

• Open the file in BlueView.
• Use annotation toolbar to select the annotation type.
• Apply the annotation to desired location on image by clicking on that location. Some annotations are drawn by dragging the mouse pointer after clicking. Right click annotations to access formatting options.

To save an annotated image file:

• To save an annotated file use File > Save, or click on the Save button in the tool bar.
• To save an annotated file with a different name use File > Save As.

To Convert a loaded Image file:

• Load the file, select File / Save As, and select the required file format from the resulting dialog.

To print an image

• First open the Windows Printer setup window (Start Menu > Settings > Printers ) and set the printer to be used the default printer. Set the paper size/orientation to be used from the Printer setup window, as these options are not available in BlueView.
• Select File > Print in the menu bar.
• Set appropriate scaling options from the toolbar, such as 1:1 (full size), 1/2 scale, or fit to width.
• Preview up to the first three pages if desired.
• Select File / Print or click the Print tool bar button to print the image. For more information about any of these topics, see the online help in BlueView.

Technical Support

Report problems with BlueView to Schlumberger Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@slb.com. Include the following information in your email message when you report a problem:

• Version of the product you use.
• Type of hardware you use, including network hardware, if applicable.
• Operating system you use.
• Exact wording of any messages that appeared on your screen.
• Description of what happened and what you were doing when the problem occurred.
• Description of how you tried to solve the problem.

Also, please attach any related data or graphics files to the e-mail message reporting the problem. Schlumberger will treat client data with full confidentiality and will destroy the data after the issue has been resolved.