All of our borehole seismic systems incorporate our Geochain Surface Panel (GSP) and VSProwess(TM) data acquisition and processing software. These products are also sold to our OEM partners, and to our competitors, for use with their own legacy geophone systems. VSProwess(TM) software is also sold separately for it's VSP processing capability and is widely used by independent VSP quality control consultants and for special studies.
GSP
The Geochain Surface Panel (GSP) is the successor to our earlier DAQ and ASP products. It provides from 2 to 16 seismic quality analog channels at up to 1/4ms sample interval. Data acquisition is controlled from a PC running Microsoft's Windows 2000 or XP Professional operating systems and connected to the GSP via a standard USB cable. Our easy-to-use VSProwess(TM) data acquisition and processing software provides powerful display and data quality monitoring functions.
The GSP incorporates a self-calibration and test facility capable of a complete range of automated pre-survey instrument tests. The precision test signals are brought out via connector to support instrument testing through the complete signal chain.
An optional digital interface module enables the GSP to accept streaming data from a third party digital borehole geophone array, which is then multiplexed with the surface channels.
In addition to four external source control relays, the GSP includes a single, electrically isolated airgun solenoid firing circuit. The GSP operates from universal input ac line voltage of 90 to 260 Volts at 50/60 Hz.
An option introduced in July 2006 is the GPS time stamp kit. This consists of a GPS receiver interfaced to an updated CPU module in the GSP. With this kit enabled the precise UTM time of the first sample of a record is saved to the file header. This enables precise synchronisation of data recorded by multiple Geochain systems in multiple wells. The accuracy of microseismic epicentre determination can be greatly enhanced using multiple synchronised Geochain antennae in this way. This feature can also be used to synchronise data recorded from downhole with surface recorded data for simoultaneous acquisition applications.
Another new module is the GCM gamma control module which enables the GSP to power and control a gamma tool. Gamma logging is carried out from within the Acq data acquisition software and the need for an extra gamma panel is eliminated. The GCM is available as an optional extra.
VSProwess
A brief history... The development of our VSProwess software began in 1991 when it became clear that our earlier RIGPRO MS-DOS based VSP acquisition and processing software had exhausted it's potential. The first release was demonstrated the following year at the EAEG conference in Paris and attracted great attention because it was amongst the first of the seismic packages to sport a flowchart driven interface. Initially VSProwess was developed on Sun workstations under UNIX and Motif, but we quickly migrated to Microsoft 32-bit Windows when we realised that this new platform was much more suitable for deployment under field conditions. VSProwess was enthusiastically adopted by our major client of that time, the Borehole Services Division of Seismograph Service Limited. Because of our practise of releasing software updates in hundredth point increments we have now reached the dizzying heights of release 1.97, but VSProwess has had seventeen years of continuous development, has acquired and processed many hundreds of VSP surveys and is a mature, stable and powerful package.
Within the VSP services industry our VSProwess software is today still widely acknowledged as the benchmark to which others can only aspire. No other package successfully combines such flexibility and power with an intuitive ease-of-use.
Visit the Datasheets page to download detailed information in pdf format.
