Three-dimensional borehole televiewer display

Abstract

A system is disclosed for creating a three-dimensional image of data obtained from scanning a borehole wall with an acoustic transducer. Each scan produces an orientation pulse and a series of signals, including a fire pulse and echo signals. The system uses the transit times of the echo signals to modulate the geometry of the three-dimensional image, and uses the amplitudes of the echo signals to control the gray scale shading of the image. In one embodiment, a counting means keeps track of the angular position of the transducer, a ramp generating means produces a ramp voltage proportional to the elapsed time since the fire pulse, a sine table means and a sine conversion means produce a sine signal proportional in amplitude to the ramp voltage, a cosine table means and a cosine conversion means produce a cosine signal porportional in amplitude to the ramp voltage, and a monitoring means displays points on the monitoring means when the echo signals are received. The points are moved radially from the center of a circle in a direction controlled by the sine and cosine signals, and the intensities of the points are proportional to the amplitudes of the echo signals.