Immersive Collaboration Platform Accelerates Upstream Growth

_ This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper IPTC 23455, “Metaverse: Accelerates Upstream Growth With the Power of Immersive Collaboration,” by Badr Al-Harbi, SPE, Muhammad Al-Readean, SPE, and Amell Al-Ghamdi, SPE, Saudi Aramco, et al. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2024 International Petroleum Technology Conference. _ The complete paper describes an immersive platform that enhances the ability of multidisciplinary teams and management to make decisions. It connects professionals to demonstrate and share findings and run cross-functional business processes in an intuitive way, capitalizing on artificial intelligence and cognitive capabilities. The unified platform features four pillars: digital assets, real-time collaboration, intelligence, and venues. The platform reduces the need for sequel meetings, supplemental silo efforts, and computational resources. Introduction The platform, called Upstream Metaverse, offers an immersive experience that transcends traditional 2D interfaces, allowing engineers and scientists to collaboratively explore intricate details of Earth structures and simulations in a 3D space. This 3D space is equipped by several human/computer interface tools that span a wide range of input devices such as touch panels, sensor-enabled devices, hand gestures, and more-advanced tools such as voice-enabled commands. As a result, simple hand movement allows the creation of a cross section of well logs for a certain zone or to zoom into a certain formation. In addition, it can be deployed on virtual reality (VR) devices, improving depth perception and, in turn, enhancing comprehension and enabling users to detect patterns, anomalies, or correlations that might be overlooked in conventional displays. Design and Overview The platform was designed to be flexible for constant change, easily extendable to incorporate new features, and open to integration of many data sources and machine-learning (ML) processes. In addition, the plans for the platform included deployment on multiple hardware such as desktops, video walls, and VR headsets. Unity 3D was selected for the development of the platform. Unity 3D is an extensively supported 3D game engine enabling customization and integration with other technologies. It generates applications that can be deployed on many VR headsets and workstations. The platform builds on the concepts of collaboration-center capabilities. This is achieved through providing capabilities to elevate the collaborative experience. First, a data-exploration visualization is developed that combines visualization of data from multiple sources. Access to platform data sets also has been streamlined and integrated with the environment. Data access is coupled with integration of ML. Then, a virtual environment is designed. In addition, collaboration features also have been added that allow participants to interact with the added data and ML processes through controllers and intelligent voice assistance.