Beta: 3D Drillhole: Create, edit and export contact points

Updated

We are testing a new feature in Surfer, where you can define contact points (aka. picks) from your drillhole data (either keyword, point or interval data), edit the contact points if needed, and export them to a data file (for gridding and creating surfaces).

The contacts could be any place where the data changes. For example, the contacts could indicate changes in rock type, density, depositional period, or the type of mineralization, etc. You could be looking to create surfaces for lithological units or the top of a coal seam.

Define the contact points either by:

  1. Setting the upper and lower interval keywords.
  2. Creating a query to query the interval or points data.

1.png

Create contact points by defining the upper and lower keywords, or by using a query.

Edit the contact points that Surfer created, if they are not created in the location you expected. Once the contact points are in the correct location - export to a data file! Grid the data and add it back to see the contact surface.

2.png

Edit the contact points and export them to a data file to use with Grid Data and display as a surface.

 

What is this new feature

This feature gives you the ability to identify, edit and export contact points in your drillholes. The XYZ coordinates for each contact can be exported to a data file, allowing you to grid the points for each contact and create contact surfaces. You can create contact points for drillhole data in the 3D view. All you need to start is a drillhole layer with either point, interval or keyword data. The three steps are: Create Contacts, Edit Contacts and Export Contacts.

 

 

How to use it: Create Contacts

Let's start with some drillhole data, where the 3D view is already created and the drillholes are displaying lithology as keywords.

  1. Download the attached file (link at the bottom of this article), Stratigraphy.srf.
  2. Open Stratigraphy.srf. You will see a drillhole layer.
  3. Right click over the drillhole layer and click 3D View to open the 3D View. You can see the drillhole layer, with the keyword data being displayed by the drillholes
    1. a.open.png
  4. In the Contents window, select Drillhole | Drillhole. This will enable the available Contact group of commands on the ribbon.
  5. Click 3D View | Contacts | Create. 
  6. In the Create Contacts dialog, you can begin to define your contacts in the table. Each row in the table is a new contact.  Let's say we want to create the contact surface for the Fill-Limestone contact. Since we will create our contacts based on the keyword data, we can begin by clicking the Method box and choosing Upper/Lower.  Note if you wanted to use data from the Points or Intervals tables, you would use the Query Data method.
  7. Click in the Field box and choose Lithology Key.
  8. Click in the Upper box and choose Fill.
  9. Click in the Lower box and choose Limestone.
  10. In the Symbol area on the right, note that the contact pick will be represented by a red 3D cross. Increase the Size to 0.3.
    1. b.onecontact.png
  11. You can create many other contacts by clicking the green + Add contact button and selecting the definition for the contacts. In this example, we'll just create one contact. Since we have our one contact defined, click OK. 
  12. You can see the new Contacts group created in the Contents menu with our one contact listed under it, and you can see the red + contact symbols in each of the drillholes in the model area:
    1. c.contacts.png

How to use it: Edit Contacts

Now let's say the contacts were created, but they weren't created in just the correct location. You know your data the best, and most real world cases aren't as simplistic as this example case. You may have interfingering layers, or knowledge specific to the contact locations. You can add and delete contact points, and you can move the points up and down in their drillhole.

  1. Select Drillhole | Drillhole (or the Contact).

  2. Click 3D View | Contacts | Edit. Now you are in edit mode and note that the command button is depressed (pressed "down", not sad).

  3. For hole MW-108, click on the contact point (the red +). A red box will be around it.

  4. Press DEL on the keyboard to delete it.

  5. Hold the CTRL key down and click on the MW-108 drillhole to add the contact back to the drillhole.
    1. If you only have one contact available to add, Surfer will automatically assign the new contact point to that contact.
    2. If the drillhole already has contact points for all defined contacts, then you'll get a message that all contacts have been created for that drillhole.
    3. If you have multiple contacts that you could add to a drillhole, you will be asked which one you want to assign to the newly created contact point.

  6. Click and drag any of the contacts up and down in their respective drillholes.

    1. d.edit.png
  7. Once you are happy with the contact point locations, press ESC on the keyboard (or 3D View | Contacts | Edit) to end editing mode.

How to use it: Export Contacts

Now that the contact points are all in the correct locations, we can export their XYZ coordinates to a data file. This data file can be used for gridding so we can turn these contact points into surfaces.

  1. Select Drillhole | Drillhole (or the Contact).
  2. Click 3D View | Contacts | Export.
  3. In the Save As dialog, select a location to save the data file, give it a name, and select the file format type for the data. We can leave this as DAT Data (*.dat). Click Save.
  4. In the Export Contacts dialog, you would select the contacts you want to export. In this case, since we only have one, it is already selected and we can click OK.
    1. If you had more than one contact listed, then you could select all or some of them to be exported.
    2. There is also the checkbox option to export each contact to its own data columns.
      1. If this option is checked (the default), then each contact is exported into separate XYZ data columns. This is useful if you want to grid the data later.
      2. If this is unchecked, then all the contacts are exported into the same XYZ columns, with another column for the contact name. This is useful just to keep a record of the contacts.

That's it to export the data! To add the exported contacts back as surfaces and for extra tips, go to the next section.

How to use it: Add as Surfaces

  1. Click the 2D plot window tab to activate that view and click Home | Grid Data.
  2. In the Grid Data dialog:
    1. Click Browse, select the data file you just exported and click Open.
    2. Make sure the XYZ data columns are specified correctly.
    3. Select the gridding method you wish. I found that Radial Basis Function looked really nice for most data sets.
    4. Click Skip to End.
    5. In the Output Grid Geometry section, you could consider increasing the # of Nodes in the X and Y directions. In this case, increase it to 200.
    6. Make sure Add grid as layer to: Map is selected, add it as a Color Relief layer, and click Finish. 
  3. You could then update the colors or opacity of the colormap for the color relief layer, if desired.
  4. Click back to the 3D view. The surface is now added to the drillholes.

f.surface.png

Tips: to make the lighting look better - utilize another new feature of multiple lights!

  1. In the Contents window, select Environment.
  2. In Properties, click the Lighting tab.
  3. Change the Location to Fixed. You now have the option to create multiple light sources! Click the Add button to add Source 2. 
  4. With Source 2 selected, change the Light Type to Point.
  5. Change the X to -10 and the Y to 100.
  6. For extra impact, in Contents, select 2D Grid Surfaces | <the grid file you added>. 
  7. In Properties:
    1. Under Surface Options change the Surface background to None.
    2. Under Textures to Display, uncheck Drillhole.
g.final.png
Was this article helpful?

Related articles

Comments

0 comments

Please sign in to leave a comment.