Sercel Chooses INT J/GeoToolkit to Develop eSQCPro, the Leading QC Tool for Seismic Data Acquisition

"For us, the best market research is working as a team with customers and being open to feedback. In turn, we chose to work with INT for the very same reason. They listen to our concerns and provide us with innovative technology solutions."

Jacques Hamon
Sercel

The Challenge
Sercel is a leading player in the field of seismic acquisition. After the initial success of SQCPro, developed by Sercel using the INT Geoscience widget library, Sercel contacted INT for help in developing their next generation seismic QC application, eSQCPro. Some key features for this new application were:

• Real time web access to QC data collected by the seismic crew
• Secured access (firewall, passwords)
• Same GUI for web-enabled access and for observer in the recording truck.
• Customizable display
• Support for low bandwidth data connections
  

INT was retained by Sercel to provide assistance with the development of the graphical views and user interface. Main requirements for the graphical views included:

• A huge amount of data can be involved (millions of points for 1 graphic)
• Data views need to be refreshed in real-time (about every 5 seconds)
• Multiple graphical representations can be displayed at the same time (up to 3 seismic graphics + 20 histograms + 2 colored maps)
• Graphical components could be re-used in other applications in the future

The Solution
To support remote access through the web, a client/server architecture was developed. An XML/HTTP messaging solution was selected to communicate between the server and the clients.

Sercel R&D team was in charge of developing the server. They developed a seismic data compression algorithm, using a wavelet transform, to improve real-time data transfer speed. Java was selected for development of the client software to provide a fully cross-platform solution. INT was asked to develop a variety of graphical views using its graphic toolkit J/GeoToolkit. Those views were then integrated into the client application, which was developed in Nantes, France.

INT's approach was to develop every graphic component involved in the application as a bean that could be reused within any application developed by Sercel in the future. The client architecture was based on a Model-View-Controller event model, which helped promote reusability while offering a great level of customization. Testing of the components was done using simulation data generated remotely from a Sercel server, therefore reproducing a realistic distributed environment.

INT also provided input throughout the development process to improve the application look and feel and usability.

The Results
Collaboration with INT allowed the Sercel eSQCPro team to deliver a complex application, based on a completely new client-server architecture, in a remarkably short period of time. INT resources and software components were critical to the success of this project. At the same time, this project provided INT with an opportunity to enhance the J/GeoToolkit in terms of performance and new features to fully satisfy needs of eSQCPro.

It has been a win-win partnership.

Sercel is now in the process of releasing the first version of eSQCPro to their customers. This is a major milestone in deployment of their new generation software platform, the e-Generation.

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