RockWorks/2002 Revision History

2003/Q1 (01/01/03-03/31/03)

- Uploaded 3/28/03 -

New Feature (03/28/03/JPR):  A new program called "SpherePlot/3D" has been added to the Geological Utilities / Map / SpherePlot menu.  This program plots data on a spherical projection within the RockPlot/3D program.  Unlike the SpherePlot/3D program, this application allows the user to dynamically spin the diagram.  Additional features are depicted within the following menu;

Cosmetic (03/28/03/JPR):  The Geological Utilities / Map / SpherePlot menu has been split into a submenu with two new options;

Bug Fix (03/28/03/JPR):  Borehole file names may now have periods within the name itself (e.g. "AAA.BBB.CCC.BH".

Bug Fix (03/27/03/JPR):  The stratigraphic surface clipping options within the Borehole Manager / Lithology / Model now work correctly.  The previous version would ignore the clipping option setting and leave the model unclipped.

Improvement (03/27/03/JPR):  The maximum number of elog columns has been increased from 25 to 250.

Bug Fix (03/26/03/JPR):  The "radius multiplier" within the Utilities / OpenGL / DiscPlot program now works correctly.

Error Trap (03/26/03/JPR):  When entering the name for a new log, the program will now check to see if the user included the file extension (".bh") within the log title.  If so, the ".bh" extension will be stripped from the log name.  This will prevent problems when the program creates the borehole files based on the log names and it will make the log titles look better within the subsequent diagrams because they won't have the ".bh" extension.

Bug Fix (03/25/03/JPR):  The ESRI_PROJECTED_STRAT_FENCE RCL command no longer displays the section-location map.

Improvement (03/24/03/MIW):  The point-mapping subroutine (used by a variety of applications) now uses the diagonal size of the map area when computing the dimensions for the point label text.  This improves the appearance of tall/narrow maps.

Improvement (03/24/03/MIW):  The accuracy of the RockPlot/3D text coordinates has been significantly increased resulting in better placement of text when plotting in very large coordinates (e.g. UTMs).

Improvement (03/23/03/JPR): The Geological Utilities / Planes / Import / Polylines -> Planes program will now automatically remove illegal characters from the polyline titles.  This is important because the program uses these titles when creating the projected point output files.

- Uploaded 03/05/03 -

Improvement (03/05/03/MMM): The tutorial and help files have been updated to reflect some of the recent changes described below.

New Feature (03/05/03/JPR): A new program called "Polylines -> Planes" has been added to the Geological Utilities / Planes / Import menu.  This program is used to calculate the orientation of planes based upon the surface trace (i.e. a polyline) and a surface model.  These orientations are computed by either a simple 3-point method or via a more sophisticated first-order polynomial function.  Please note that this method assumes significant vertical relief within the surface model.

- Uploaded 2/26/03 -

Bug Fix (02/25/03/MIW): The DXF export program now properly formats convex polygons.  This improvement is most apparent when exporting Stiff diagrams.

Cosmetic (02/25/03/JPR): The bargraph labeling options are no longer displayed within the 3D log appearance menu (bar labels were never available for 3D logs).

Bug Fix (02/25/03/JPR): The automatic scaling of elog/curve data within the 2D and 3D strip logs now works correctly.

New Feature (02/25/03/JPR):  A new menu item titled "Minimum Segments" has been added to the Utilities / Grid / Directional-Maps / 3D Flow Diagram menu.  In the previous versions, some of the drainage pathways were very short and disconnected, depending upon the nature of the original topographic surface.  To minimize this effect, the program can now remove pathways that have a limited number of segments.  The following example illustrates the effects of increasing the minimum segments from zero (top diagram) to 20 (lower diagram).

Also, the 3D Flow Diagram program now includes a built-in user manual.

Bug Fix (02/24/03/JPR): The Map / Grid-Based Map program no longer produces strange contours when using high-fidelity gridding in conjunction with triangulation-based grid models.

Improvement (02/24/03/JPR): The Hydrology / Drawdown / 1-Well program has been modified such that the maximum amount of drawdown will never exceed the maximum saturated thickness.

- Uploaded 02/24/03 -

Bug Fix (02/24/03/JPR): The Volumetrics / Extract-Solid program now list the proper number within the field labeled "Maximum Remediation Excavation Depth".  The previous version would list the minimum excavation elevation.

Bug Fix (02/24/03/JPR): The Drawdown / 1-Well program now plots the border annotation - assuming that the user has checked the "plot-border-annotation" option.

Improvement (02/24/03/MMM): The on-line tutorial has been updated.

New Feature (02/23/03/JPR): The Stratigraphy / Volumetrics program has been completely rewritten.  The new version is identical to the changes described below for the Lithology / Volumetrics program.

New Feature (02/23/03/JPR): The Lithology / Volumetrics program has been completely rewritten.  The new version allows the user to specify the "bench" height rather than just listing the volumetrics for every layer within the model.  In addition, the program has many other new options as shown below;

Note the new options for creating reports that depict the number of nodes per bench, the volume, the mass, and the relative percent.

- Uploaded 2/18/03 -

New Feature (02/18/02/JPR):  A new section titled "Negative Values" has been added to the View / Preferences menu.  These options define how RockWorks will handle negative interval-based (geochemistry) and point-based (geophysical) values within borehole files.  The reasoning for this feature is as follows; 

- Uploaded 2/18/03 -

Bug Fix (02/18/02/JPR): The 2/17/03 upload contained some garbled abstracts (the help messages that appear within the right side of the menu.  It also included some temporary files that bloated the upload size from 12mb to 16mb.

New Feature (02/17/03/JPR): The RockPlot2D / File / Import / DXF program now includes a menu option for suppressing any warning messages that may appear.

- Uploaded 2/17/03 -

Improvement (02/15/03/JPR): The File / Import / NEIC (National Earthquake Information Center) program has been streamlined such that the output is always stored directly within the currently displayed datasheet.  The menu abstract has also been extended and linked to a cased study on the RockWare web site.

New Feature (02/15/03/JPR): A new program called "Multiple Sets" has been added to the Planes / 3-Point -> Plane menu.  Given a list of xyz coordinates for three points, this program computes the dip direction (or strike) and dip angle for planes that pass through these points.  The output is stored within two new datasheet columns.


Program Menu


Sample datasheet showing input and output data.

Cosmetic (2/14/03/JPR): The following changes have been made to the menus within the Geological Utiltities;

Improvement (2/14/03/JPR): The horizontal lithoblending algorithm has been improved such that the interpolation within the "outlier" areas (areas outside the region of borehole control) is more stratiform.  This means that the units are projected laterally all the way to the edges of the project area, assuming that the "Interpolate Outliers" option has been enabled.

New Feature (2/14/03/JPR): A new option titled "High Fidelity" has been added to the solid-modeling option menus that are used by a variety of RockWorks applications.  When selected, this option will "tweak" the final grid model (after the smoothing option has been applied) such that the node values will do a better job of honoring the control points, regardless of the algorithm or the grid smoothing smoothing.  This is accomplished by modeling the residuals, adding the residuals model to the initial model, and then overwriting the node values with the original control point values.  Unlike the grid version (described below), this is not an iterative algorithm (too slow).

New Feature (2/13/03/JPR): A new option titled "High Fidelity" has been added to the gridding option menus that are used by a variety of RockWorks applications.  When selected, this option will "tweak" the final grid model (after the smoothing option has been applied) such that the contours will do a better job of honoring the control points, regardless of the algorithm or the grid smoothing smoothing.  The capability uses a recursive algorithm that grids the residuals, adds them back into the original model, and repeats the process until the cumulative error drops below a threshold.

The following example depicts some data (the "Davis" data set) that has been gridded (via Kriging), smoothed, and contoured (dashed blue lines).  The red lines show the same grid with the "high-fidelity" option enabled.  The green arrows show areas where the contours have been improbed such that they honor the control points.

Bug Fix (02/10/03/MIW):  Fixed the Access Violation Error within RockPlot/3D caused by importing a DXF file containing a polymesh with only 1 row. This will now plot as a polygon.

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR):  A new option titled "RGB -> Windows" has been added to the "Util/Colors" sub-menu.  This program is used to convert RGB colors to Windows colors.  It is designed to serve as a utility for users who are creating their own RCL (RockWorks Command Language) files.

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR):  A simple program called "Color Number" has been added to the "Util/Colors" sub-menu.  This program is used to obtain the Windows color number from a visual palette.  It is designed to serve as a utility for users who are creating their own RCL (RockWorks Command Language) files.

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR):  A new option titled "Colors" has been added to the Utils menu.  This item provides access to the new RGB->Windows and Color-Number programs (see two items above).

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR):  A new program called "Cubes" has been added to the OpenGL / Images sub-menu.  This program is used to create three-dimensional cubes in which the sides are made up of user-defined bitmaps.

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR):  A new program called "Disc" has been added to the OpenGL menu.  This program plots 3D discs based on xyz coordinates, dip-direction, and dip amount.  It is designed to display the relative orientations of planes in three-dimensions.

New Feature (02/10/03/JPR): A new program called "Triangles" has been added to the OpenGL menu.  This program reads a list of triangle vertices and plots the triangles within RockPlot/3D.


Random triangles plotted by the new OpenGL / Triangles program.

- Uploaded 2/10/03 -

Bug Fix (02/10/03/MIW):  Modifed the RockPlot2D/Import/DXF reader code so that closed POLYLINE's and LWPOLYLINE's (70 = 1) are drawn as closed.  In the previous version, some LWPOLYLINEs were missing the final line segment.  Example: A building outline would not include the final edge.

Bug Fix (02/10/03/MIW):  Modified the RockPlot/2D/Import/DXF reader code for POLYLINE PolyFaceMesh's to draw them as closed polylines and ignore 0,0,0 VERTEX.   This will solve problems in which some files included a strange line(s) drawn to the origin.

New Feature (02/07/03/JPR): A new option titled "Logarithmic" has been added to the solid-modeling submenus that are used by a variety of programs.  This option will cause the program to perform the following operations;

Data sets that contain large "outliers" (i.e. values that are far beyond the typical range of data) are typically problematic when the goal is to highlight these anomalous regions.  By computing and gridding the natural logarithm of the control point values, the regional effects of these outliers is more localized as shown by the following diagram.  The net effect is to highlight anomalous regions (e.g. contaminant plumes).

Note: The new logarithmic capability should be restricted to data sets that contain geochemical or geophysical data with grossly anomalous data points.

New Feature (02/07/03/JPR): A new option titled "Logarithmic" has been added to the gridding submenus that are used by a variety of programs. This option will cause the program to perform the following operations;

Data sets that contain large "outliers" (i.e. values that are far beyond the typical range of data) are typically problematic when the goal is to highlight these anomalous regions.  By computing and gridding the natural logarithm of the control point values, the regional effects of these outliers is more localized as shown by the following diagram.  The net effect is to highlight anomalous regions (e.g. contaminant plumes).

Note: The new logarithmic capability should be restricted to data sets that contain geochemical or geophysical data with grossly anomalous data points.  It is not well suited for surface elevation data due to the fact that these data sets typically include negative z-values (i.e. sub-sea elevations).

- Uploaded 1/30/03 -

New Feature (01/29/03/JPR): The following optional parameters have been added to the RCL WELL2WELL_STRAT_FENCE and ESRI_WELL2WELL_STRAT_FENCE commands;  FILL_GAPS, HANG_LOGS, and HANG_DATUM.  For more information, please refer to the online RCL documentation at

http://www.rockware.com/catalog/pages/rockworks2002/RCL/index.htm

New Feature (01/29/03/JPR):  The Stratigraphy / Fence / Hole-to-Hole & Hole-to-Hole/ESRI menus now include an option titled "Hang Fill Data Gaps".  This utility will temporarily shift all of the logs (vertically) such that the selected formation (datum) forms a horizontal surface at an elevation of zero.  These types of diagrams are great for evaluating the relative thicknesses of individual units.

Note: This capability can ONLY be used with vertical logs.

New Feature (01/29/03/JPR):  The Stratigraphy / Fence / Hole-to-Hole & Hole-to-Hole/ESRI menus now include an option titled "Fill Data Gaps".  This utility will do the following; If the top of a stratigraphic unit is undefined, and the base of the overlying unit is defined, the program will set the missing top depth to the basal depth of the overlying unit. If the base of a stratigraphic units is undefined, and the top of the underlying unit is defined, the program will set the missing basal depth to the superface depth of the underlying unit. You might want to read the previous two sentences very slowly.

Cosmetic (01/29/03/JPR): The Project Folder menu no longer appears whenever the program is executed in the RCL (RockWare Command Language) batch mode.

- Uplodated 01/21/03 -

Bug Fix (01/21/03/MIW): The following bugs within the DirStat / Beta-Intersections program have been fixed;

New Feature (01/20/03/JPR):  Added the following commands to the RCL (RockWorks Command Language). 

For more information about these commands, please refer to

www.rockware.com/catalog/pages/rockworks2002/RCL/index.htm

New Feature (01/20/03/JPR):  A new option titled "Interpolate Surfaces" has been added to the following menus;

When the Interpolate Surfaces option is checked, the program will interpolate grid models for the top and bottom of every stratigraphic unit.  When the Interpolate Surfaces option is not checked, the aforementioned programs will assume that the grids already exist.  The idea behind this check-box is that you may be working with very large data sets and/or a slow machine in which case you don't necessarily want to create new grid models every time that you generate a diagram.

New Feature (01/20/03/JPR):  A new program called "Projected/ESRI" has been added to the Stratigraphy / Fence sub-menu.  The program is similar to the Stratigraphy / Fence / Projected program except for the fact that the output is stored in ESRI compatible 3D shape files rather than the RockPlot/3D format.


Projected fence diagram displayed within ESRI's 3D-Analyst program.

The "Output File" is a "root name", meaning that the program will actually create three files; a DBF (database), a SHP (ESRI Shape) file, and an ESRI SHX file.  These files will be stored within the current project folder.  The names of these files are defined by the Output File setting.  Note: Do not add extensions (e.g. ".dbf") or paths (e.g. "c:\mydata") to this name.

New Feature (01/17/03/JPR):  A new program called "Well-to-Well" has been added to the Stratigraphy / Fence sub-menu.  Unlike the projected section fence diagram program, this program plots stratigraphy based on common contacts between adjacent boreholes.  These correlations consist simply of linear correlations between the boreholes.  The fence diagram endpoint coordinate endpoints are automatically "snapped" to the coordinates of the closest borehole.


Well-to-well cross-section.


Well-to-well cross-section combined with 3D borehole diagrams.


Well-to-well cross-section combined with 3D borehole diagrams.  Note how correlations are drawn from inclined drill hole.


Comparison of fence diagram based on projected sections versus well-to-well sections.

  Well-to-Well Sections Projected Sections
Method Contacts based on interpolated surface modelsl for all boreholes. Contacts based on linear correlations between adjacent boreholes.
Appearance Angular-looking correlations. Smooth correlations.
Panel Locations Panels must connect borehole locations. Panels may be placed at arbritary endpoints.
     

 

New Feature (01/17/03/JPR):  A new program called "Well-to-Well/ESRI" has been added to the Stratigraphy / Fence sub-menu.  Unlike the projected section fence diagram program, this program plots stratigraphy based on common contacts between adjacent boreholes.  These correlations consist simply of linear correlations between the boreholes.  The fence diagram endpoint coordinate endpoints are automatically "snapped" to the coordinates of the closest borehole.  The output is stored within an ESRI-compatible 3D "Shape" file.

The "Output File" is a "root name", meaning that the program will actually create three files; a DBF (database), a SHP (ESRI Shape) file, and an ESRI SHX file.  These files will be stored within the current project folder.  The names of these files are defined by the Output File setting.  Note: Do not add extensions (e.g. ".dbf") or paths (e.g. "c:\mydata") to this name.


Hole-to-hole fence diagram displayed within ESRI's 3D-Analyst program.

Cosmetic (01/17/03/JPR):  The Stratigraphy / Fence option has been split into four sub-options;

- Uploaded 1/9/03 -

Bug Fix (01/07/02/MIW): The RockPlot/3D data tree is always displayed whenever RockPlot/3D is re-opened.  This solves the following problem;  If you set the data tree to be displayed along the left side of the RP3D window, and if you set the pane so small that you can't see the data tree any longer, AND if you then close RockPlot3D in that state, you can never retrieve the data tree's pane.

New Feature (01/07/02/AA): A file called "bh import blank.xls" has been added to the Samples/Boreholes/Site_01 folder.  This is a blank XLS (Excel) file that shows how to to import data from Excel into the RockWorks borehole manager.

New Feature (01/06/03/JPR):  A new group of menu options titled "Interval Thickness" has been added to the 3D striplog menu (see example below).  This new feature has the following effects upon the different plotting styles;

Tubes Cylinders Oblates

 

 

New Feature (01/06/03/JPR):  A new group of menu options titled "Interval Thickness" has been added to the 2D striplog menu (see example below).  The "Automatic" setting will plot a bargraph just like the previous version (i.e. the filled-rectangle top and bottom will correspond with the top and bottom of the geochem interval.  The "Manual" setting will plot a filled rectangle at the user specified thickness, centered on the midpoint of the depth interval (see second diagram below).

Bug Fix (01/06/03/JPR): The text within RockPlot/3D entities (e.g. legends, special patterns, etc.) may now contain ampersand (&) characters.  The previous version would generate a fatal error if an ampersand was included within any of the text.

Bug Fix (01/06/03/JPR): The automatic scaling for geochemical and geophysical log data now works correctly if the project includes an "enabled" log that has no geochemical or geophysical data.

Improvement (01/05/03/JPR): The licensing information is now stored within the "HKey_Current_Machine" registry table - rather than the "HKey_Current_User" table.  This means that a network administrator can log onto your machine as the "administrator", install the software, and log-off.  Then ... you can log into the machine, using your own password, and use the software.  In previous versions, the network administrator needed to log-in as the machine user in order to install the software.

Cosmetic (01/03/03/JPR):  The following cosmetic changes have been made to the main menu;