A multimodal reservoir-simulation environment

A new environment integroting a voice-advisory system with multimodal visualization was built for Saudi Aramco's in-house reservoir simulator. Engineers can simultaneously visualize oil saturation, hear changes in reservoir pressure, and feel rock permeability interactively as they move a 3D mouse throughout the reservoir. Engineers also can provide operational and surveillance rules so that the computer automatically checks conditions on any variables. The system can take a number of actions, such as using sound synthesis to speak directly to the engineer, when these conditions occur. The system runs on a Microsoft Windows-XP-based personal computer (PC) with dual processors.