Barco’s multi-windowing display system facilitates collaborative oil & gas exploration at Noble Energy
Barco, a worldwide leader in display solutions for the oil and gas industry, has installed a state-of-the-art visualization center for US-based Noble Energy. The center was officially inaugurated at Noble Energy’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, on January 29, 2008. Thanks to the center’s advanced functionality, Noble Energy’s multi-disciplinary teams can analyze complex, seismic data and other critical oil and gas information in a much more efficient way.
Noble Energy is a leading independent energy company engaged in worldwide oil and gas exploration and production. The Company operates primarily in the Rocky Mountains, mid-continent, and deepwater Gulf of Mexico areas in the United States, with key international operations offshore Israel, UK, and West Africa. Noble Energy’s management team decided a new visualization center would greatly improve collaboration between their various expert teams, enhancing decision-making processes and stimulating productivity. They also wanted a premium display system to deliver impressive presentations and showcase their leading position in the industry. When Noble Energy saw a demonstration of Barco’s large-scale, immersive display system with 3D projection and multi-windowing capabilities, the company immediately knew it had to have this advanced imaging solution at its new visualization center.“What we saw from Barco really impressed us – no one else was showing that kind of technology”, says Stacy Franks, Noble Energy’s Senior Geoscience Associate. “We were very happy Barco could offer us a turnkey solution, so that we didn’t have to turn to multiple suppliers”.
Barco’s field-proven CADWall display system is at the heart of Noble Energy’s new visualization center. It combines large-scale 3D visualization with the ability to display multiple information sources in multiple windows. The source and windowing management is made possible with Barco’s XDS-1000, the industry’s most advanced network-centric display management system.
The XDS-1000 enables source multi-windowing in a familiar Windows desktop environment with mouse and keyboard control. Winning the World Oil Award in 2007 for ‘Best data application/visualization’, the XDS-1000 is a sophisticated imaging tool for the oil and gas industry as it displays multiple 3D stereo and non-stereo sources simultaneously. This means that asset teams from Noble Energy are able to share and analyze seismic data in 3D, while viewing other ancillary information such as a financial spreadsheet, a video presentation, and information from the Internet. Users can update content in real time via the network, and can also hold extremely realistic videoconferencing sessions with geographically distributed staff.
“Barco’s CADWall delivers the pixels, the stereo imagery and the user-friendly interface to really create a high-quality environment for anyone who visits the center,” says Susan Cunningham, Noble Energy’s Senior Vice President of Exploration. “We believe that working with a technology leader in visualization confirms our place as technology leader in the oil and gas industry.”
Noble Energy officials attribute much of the project’s success to Barco’s comprehensive project management expertise and sound implementation process. “We were extremely impressed with Barco’s engineering know-how,” says Stacy Franks. “From their initial technical advice and thorough proposal, to their ability to integrate their hardware and software with our systems, we felt we received the best service from very knowledgeable people.”
About Barco
Barco is a global technology company which designs and develops visualization products for a variety of professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. For fiscal year 2006, Barco posted net sales of euro 751.0 million. Barco’s ordinary shares are listed on the Brussels/Euronext stock exchange. Share information may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbol BAR BB and on Reuters under BARBt.BR.
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