Modeling Stream Channels Petrel

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Building Stream Channel Grids

Stream channels are encountered in many Petrel Projects. Sometimes they are built as facies objects using the
Facies Modeling process. Sometimes they are built as grids representing channel thickness and hung from an
existing structure or inserted between two structures. The figure below shows a grid based stream channel. This
TIPS&TRICKS explores methods commonly used to build channel thickness grids in Petrel.
Figure: Channel thickness grid displayed upside down in plan view (left) and 3D view (right).
General Channel Modeling Approach

Gridded stream channels are normally part of a structural framework. That is, the channel is usually hung from a
structure grid that is one of several structures that together define the framework. The key word here is hung, which
implies that the channel has thickness that can be subtracted from a structure. Therefore, the channel model is built
in the thickness domain not the depth domain. The channel thickness grid is positive where the channel exists and
negative where it does not. The thickness is then clipped to a minimum of zero before being subtracted from the
structure grid immediately above it. There are situations when building input grids for the Make Horizons process
that the thickness grid is not clipped to a minimum of zero before hanging from the top of channel structure grid,
but these situations are beyond the scope of this article and will not be discussed.
A two horizon, one channel framework is used to demonstrate the general steps in modeling a stream channel as a
grid. The figure below is a cross section cutting the framework normal to the channel trend.
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© 2011 SCM E&P Solutions, Inc.
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Figure: Schematic section showing a structural framework with included channel.
Channel Top
Base
Steps in the channel modeling process for the example above:

1. Build other grids in the structural framework
a. Build Top structure grid
b. Build Base structure grid using conformable technique (result will not cross Top)
Figure: Schematic section showing data and Top and Base structures.
2. Calculate the channel thickness data

a. Convert channel base picks to points
b. Subtract channel base picks from Top structure grid creating channel thickness data

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Figure: Schematic section showing calculation of channel thickness data.
3. Create contours or supplemental data to guide the channel thickness gridding process
a. Use Make/Edit Polygons process to create channel thickness contours, using the thickness data and
other information as a guide
b. Create zero, positive, and negative thickness contours
4. Build the channel thickness grid
a. Use Make/Edit Surface process to build the grid
i. Main input is the contour data
ii. Use Well adjustment to tie the grid to the channel thickness data
iii. Refine the polygons in the Pre processing step
iv. Use same grid limits and increment as used for
Top and Base structure grids
b. Use operation Replace when Z <= zero to clip (truncate) the channel thickness grid to a minimum of
zero (do not use Post processing in Make/edit surface to do this)
Figure: Schematic section showing channel thickness grid with negative values (black) and clipped to
a minimum of zero (red dashes).
5. Build base of Channel structure grid

a. Copy the Top structure grid (surface from which channel will be hung)
b. Rename the copy to be Base Channel
c. Subtract channel thickness grid (positive and zero) from the copied structure

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Figure: Schematic section showing framework with structural channel (red).
6. Compare the new channel structure grid to all lower grids to make sure the channel cuts away any portions
of those grids it crosses.
Building the Channel Thickness Grid

The construction of the channel thickness grid is the most time consuming part of the process and where your
interpretative powers come into play. There are four ways to construct channel thickness grids in Petrel:
 Digitized channel thickness contours
 Channel center polygon gridding
 Interactive grid editing
 Isochore gridding
Each has its pros and cons and each is discussed in the sections below.
The “Real World” Channel Data

To demonstrate channel thickness gridding methods we created a “real world” geologic model. This we then drilled
several wells into and captured tops at each. The base‐of‐channel picks and the Top structure grid were used to
calculate the thickness data points using the method described above in step 2 of the General Channel Modeling
Approach. These channel thickness data were the primary input to each of the channel thickness gridding methods
below. The figures below show the three horizon “real world” model.
Figure: 3D view of “Real world” model showing top, base‐channel, and base horizons (left) and base‐channel
horizon (right).

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Figure: Map view of the channel thickness grid built from the “real world” surfaces (left). This is the model that we
are trying to match. Wells are shown in red (zero channel thickness) and yellow (positive channel thickness). 3D
view of the same thickness (right) with posted values.
Digitized Channel Thickness Contours Method

Contours defining the channel will be positive where the channel exists and negative where it does not. The use of
negative contours is a standard technique in computer modeling and in many situations is required to produce best
results. For example, if only positive and zero contours were used, then the gridding algorithm would correctly
define the thickness of the channel inside the zero edge. However, as the gridding process moved out from the zero
edge into non‐channel areas (having no contour data) it would tend to return to positive values, falsely indicating
that there was additional channel in that area. The use of negative contours ensures this does not happen and the
resulting negative grid values are easily removed in a later step.
Set up display
Prepare the display for digitizing by:
1. Using the Make/edit Surface process to create a flat grid with all values equal zero and having the desired X‐
Y limits and grid increment (use Artificial algorithms  Plane method).
2. Opening a 2D window
3. Displaying the zero grid
4. Displaying the thickness data large enough to see the points and read the values (it is better if the positive
values are one color and the zero values another).

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Figure: 2D Window ready for digitizing channel thickness contours (Zero grid and thickness data displayed).
Blue dots are zero thickness and yellow dots are positive thickness.
Build positive thickness data file

The thickness data that is positive must be separated from the data that have zero values. This is because the initial
thickness grid will have negative values outside the channel and positive values inside and that grid will be tied to
the thickness data. Tying negative grid values to zero data will cause dramatic adjustments to the grid which are not
desired.
Eliminate zero thickness values from the channel thickness points by:
1. Making a copy of the original thickness data and naming appropriately.
2. Using the Eliminate <=constant operation and setting the constant to 0.1.
Digitize contours
In this part of contour thickness modeling you create contours that will be used to build the thickness grid. These
contours must be positive where the channel exists and negative where it does not. Be sure that the zero contour
you create stays between the zero data and positive data. The zero contour should not go through the zero data
points.
Create the channel contours by:
1. Making the Make/edit polygons process active (bold)
2. Clicking on the Start new set of polygons Icon and digitizing the first contour
3. Clicking on the Start new polygon on active set Icon and digitizing the next contour (which is added to
the same file).
4. Repeating step 3 until all contours are created
5. Clicking on the Pops up Z‐value selector icon (to display value setter in lower left corner of Petrel)

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6. Clicking on the Select and edit line icon
7. Clicking on a line (all points on the line should turn yellow)
8. Entering the contour value for the line in the Z= location
9. Clicking on the equal sign to assign the value to the contour

10. Repeating the contour assignment process until all contours are assigned (note, you will probably have to
remove the grid to see the negative contours).
11. Displaying the contours in a 3D window to see that all are in the correct position.
Figure: 3D window showing thickness contours for a stream channel. The dark and light blue lines are
negative valued, the green and yellow lines are zero valued and the pink line has a value of 60.
Build thickness grid (positive and negative)

In this part of contour thickness modeling a grid is built for thickness. That grid is both positive and negative and is
tied to the positive thickness data. Take care to be sure you do not use the zero and positive data for tying (only the
positive). Also, you will be tempted to use the Post processing tab to clip the output grid to a minimum value of
zero. Don’t do this. The well tie is applied after this clipping and the flat zero truncated areas of the grid will be
pushed up and down, creating non‐zero surface form.
Build the thickness grid and tie it to positive thickness data by:
1. Double clicking on the Make/edit Surface process
2. Using the channel contours as the Main input

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3. Using a geometry (X‐Y limits and increments) that is the same as the other structures in the framework
4. Checking the Refine the polygons by button on the Pre processing tab and using Smooth (Cubic spline). This
adds many more points to the contour lines and smoothes them.
5. Checking the Global adjustment button on the Well adjustment tab (consider, based on the results whether
you need to use an influence radius) and inserting the positive channel thickness data into the Well tops
parameter using the blue arrow.
6. Clicking Apply to build the grid.
Figure: Parameters used in the Make/edit Surface process.

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Figure: Thickness grid tied to the yellow positive thickness data (red is negative portion of grid).
Clipmin thickness grid to zero

Sometimes you will want to clip the channel thickness grid to a minimum value of zero before hanging it from the
structure grid representing the top of channel. If that is the case, then use the operation Replace where Z < constant
with the constant set to 0.0.
Figure: 2D and 3D views of the completed channel thickness model built from hand drawn contours.
Channel Center Polygon Gridding Method

Petrel has a gridding algorithm that builds a channel given as input a polygon representing the center of the channel.
You input parameters representing constant width and thickness of the channel. Output is a grid that is flat at zero
and rises up to define the channel thickness centered on the polygon. To effectively use this tool to build a channel
thickness grid tied to real channel data requires several steps.

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Set up display
1. Using the Make/edit Surface process to create a flat grid with all values equal zero and having the desired X‐
Y limits and grid increment (use Artificial algorithms  Plane method).
3. Displaying the zero grid
Digitize channel center polygon
In this part of polygon thickness modeling you create a channel center polygon that will be used to build the
thickness grid. Care must be taken to ensure that the ultimate channel edge will not cross over onto the zero
thickness data. If it does you will have to edit the polygon and rerun the later processing steps.
Create the channel center polygon by:
1. Making the Make/edit polygons process active (bold)
2. Clicking on the Start new set of polygons Icon and digitizing the first channel center polygon
3. Adding an additional channel or channel tributary by clicking on the Start new polygon on active set Icon
and digitizing the next polygon (which is added to the same file).
4. Repeating step 3 until all channels are created
Figure: 2D window showing channel center polygon with thickness data posted (blue = zero and yellow =
positive).

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Build initial thickness grid
The thickness grid built from the polygon will be flat at zero except where the channel exists. Since the channel must
eventually be tied to the thickness data, this is not good. The tie process will shift the flat zero values up and down
creating a grid that does not represent a correct channel thickness. To compensate for this you must make the
channel 20 to 50 units thicker than it actually is. Then you will subtract that extra thickness from the initial channel
grid, tie it to the top picks, and then clip the tied grid to a minimum of zero. This allows all the shifting of the flat
surface to occur in negative space and to eventually be thrown away (clipped to a minimum of zero).
Build the initial thickness grid and tie it to positive thickness data by:
2. Using the channel center polygon as the Main input
3. Using a geometry (X‐Y limits and increments) that are the same as the other structures in the framework
4. Checking the Refine the polygons button on the Pre processing tab and using Smooth (Cubic spline). This
adds many more points to the contour lines and smoothes them.
5. Selecting the Artificial algorithm
a. Select the Channels sub‐tab
b. Set the Channel thickness parameter to the desired thickness plus a constant adjustment factor (we
used 20 for this example)
c. Set the Channel width parameter to a reasonable value

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Figure: Thickness grid built from a channel center polygon.
Shift grid down by adjustment factor

Subtract from the initial channel thickness grid the adjustment factor you added to the channel thickness value
when building the “artificial” grid in the previous step. Do this with the Arithmetic operation Z = Z – constant where
constant is the adjustment factor. The resulting grid will be flat at “0 – the adjustment factor” and have the portion
of the channel above zero representing the thickness you desire.
Figure: Initial thickness grid shifted down by adjustment factor. The line between red and yellow on the surface
represents zero and the flat red surface is at ‐20.

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Tie shifted grid to positive thickness data
Tie shifted grid to data by:
2. Using the shifted grid as the Main input
3. Using a geometry (X‐Y limits and increments) that are the same as the other structures in the framework
4. Using the Surface resampling algorithm
5. Checking the Global adjustment button on the Well adjustment tab
a. Check the Use influence radius box
b. Set the radius to the channel width or a little less
c. Insert the positive channel thickness data into the Well tops parameter using the blue arrow.

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Figure: 2D view of the shifted thickness grid tied to positive thickness values.

Figure: 2D and 3D views of the completed channel thickness model built from a channel center polygon.

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Interactive Grid Editing Method
Petrel has a number of grid editing tools in the Make/edit surface process. One of the tools allows you to drag the
cursor over a grid and it will raise the nodes by a specified amount over a specified width with a specified form. This
tool can be used to build a channel thickness grid. Input to this editing process is a flat grid and the result must be
tied to the channel thickness data. This creates the same problems as the previous method. That is, the flat zero
portion of the surface will, after tying to the thickness data, have values that are both positive and negative and be
unacceptable as a thickness grid. To counter this effect the starting grid is made flat at zero minus an adjustment
factor (is negative). The height‐of‐edits value is increased by this adjustment factor (average channel thickness plus
adjustment factor). Then the edits can be made, the grid tied to the thickness data and then clipped to a minimum
zero.
Set up display
1. Using the Make/edit Surface process to create a flat grid with all values equal zero minus an adjustment
factor (we used 20 in this example) and having the desired X‐Y limits and grid increment (use Artificial
algorithms  Plane method).
3. Displaying the flat negative grid
Figure: 2D window ready for editing the channel form into the displayed grid that is flat at a value of ‐20.
Use edit tool to build channel

Create the channel by:

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1. Clicking on the Make/edit Surface process to make it active
2. Clicking on the Add to the Z‐value of the selected grid node icon
3. Setting the Use the influence radius icon size value to an appropriate number of grid increments
(this is the channel width).
4. Setting the Specify the Z‐value icon to the average channel thickness plus the adjustment factor
(amount the flat grid was shifted below zero).
5. Drawing the channel. Start at one end of the grid and make one continuous pass across the surface. To
create a tributary, start at the edge of the grid and draw the cursor up to the center of the channel it
intersects. Remember you can always undo and rebuild the channel. You will want the channel going over
the thickness data.
Figure: 2D view of the channel thickness grid built using the Make/edit surface process editing tool.
Smooth the channel slightly

The channel you create will be a bit rough and might look better if it were smoothed slightly. If you want to smooth
the channel then use Surface operations  Smooth with Filter width of 4 or 5.

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Figure: 2D view showing the smoothed version of the channel thickness grid built by editing.
Tie edited (smoothed) grid to positive thickness data

Tie thickness grid to data by:
2. Using the shifted grid as the Main input
3. Using a geometry (X‐Y limits and increments) that is the same as the other structures in the framework
4. Using the Surface resampling algorithm
5. Checking the Global adjustment box on the Well adjustment tab
a. Check the Use influence radius box
b. Set the radius to the channel width or a little less
c. Insert the positive channel thickness data into the Well tops parameter using the blue arrow.

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Figure: 2D view of the thickness grid, built by editing, tied to positive thickness values.


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Figure: 2D and 3D views of the completed channel thickness model built by editing a flat grid.
Isochore Algorithm Method

The isochore algorithm can be used to build a channel thickness grid but the authors have found that by the time
you finish using contours and other constraints to get the thickness grid to look acceptable, you could have drawn
the channels using the thickness contour method and gotten a better or comparable result. For this reason, the
detailed steps required to build a channel thickness grid using the isochore algorithm are not presented here. The
figures below show you a few of the intermediate steps in this process.
Figure: 2D view of the channel thickness grid built using the positive and zero data (left) and supplemental contours
that had to be merged with the thickness data to control the gridding algorithm (right). Note how the supplemental
contours are almost identical to the contours used in the contour thickness method. They required considerable
tuning to get an acceptable result here.

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Figure: 2D view of channel thickness grid built using the isochore gridding algorithm and hand drawn contours.
Comparison to the “Real World”

Regardless of what technique you use to build a channel thickness grid you are still building a model. Unfortunately
we seldom have the “real world” to compare to our model to see how well we have done. Our model can only be
considered accurate around the well points in the channel. Away from those points, it is only an educated guess. In
this exercise, we do have the real world and, although we tried, we failed miserably to reproduce the channel. The
authors would estimate that if we drilled the model we would actually hit the real channel only 10% to 20% of the
time. Hopefully your model will do better.
Figure: 2D view showing the “real world” channel (top left), the contour modeled channel (top right), the channel
center polygon model (bottom left), and the edited channel model (bottom right).

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Figure: 2D view with “real world” channel in yellow overlain on the center polygon channel.

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Modeling Stream Channels Petrel

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Petrel TIPS&TRICKS from SCM

Knowledge Worth Sharing

Building Stream Channel Grids

General Channel Modeling Approach

Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

Steps in the channel modeling process for the example above:

2. Calculate the channel thickness data

Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

5. Build base of Channel structure grid

Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

Building the Channel Thickness Grid

The “Real World” Channel Data

Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

Digitized Channel Thickness Contours Method

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4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

Build positive thickness data file

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8. Entering the contour value for the line in the Z= location

9. Clicking on the equal sign to assign the value to the contour

Build thickness grid (positive and negative)

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Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

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Clipmin thickness grid to zero

Channel Center Polygon Gridding Method

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Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

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Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

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Shift grid down by adjustment factor

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Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

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Clipmin thickness grid to zero

Petrel is a mark of Schlumberger

4801 Woodway Drive, Suite 150W • Houston, TX 77056 • www.scminc.com • info@scminc.com

Use edit tool to build channel

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Smooth the channel slightly

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Tie edited (smoothed) grid to positive thickness data

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Clipmin thickness grid to zero

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Isochore Algorithm Method

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Comparison to the “Real World”

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