Color display of well logs

Abstract

Information displayed in image form is conventionally at least two-dimensional. One-dimensional data can also be displayed as imagery by “amplitude slicing” a function and representing these amplitude slices as grey levels or as intensities of a particular color. An image having length and width can be formed from one-dimensional data by arranging a sequence of such color levels along the length of the image, corresponding to the independent space or time variable, and by extending these color levels arbitrarily along the width of the image. Such an image is of arbitrary width and exhibits changes, or information, only along its length. If three such images are made, one in each of the three primary colors, each image representing a different one-dimensional function over the same range of a common independent space or time variable, standard primary color composition can be used to unite these three images into a single full-color image in either computer graphic or photographic media. When three different well logs from a single borehole are combined in this manner, the resulting full-color image is equivalent to a three-axis cross-plot of the logs involved. Because primary colors appear to the human eye to be orthogonal and miscible, the color image preserves all information present in the three original data sets.