Formation evaluation

Super-Resolution Carbonate Rock Image Beyond Instrument Limitations

Imaging carbonate rocks at high resolution without losing scale has long been a challenge. A novel framework is introduced that enables accurate super-resolution and extrapolation of carbonate rock images, enhancing micro-CT images while preserving mineralogical and topological features for more reliable pore-scale analysis and flow simulations.

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3D digital rock and 2D slice visualizations of carbonate rocks illustrate the effect of resolution on observable rock features. These visualizations are of a carbonate sample in the MRCCM data set. (a) Low-resolution (10.72 μm/pixel) 3D digital rock, 380×380×512, highlighting macropores, interparticle pores, and interparticles. (b) High-resolution (2.68 μm/pixel) 3D digital rock, 1,520×1,520×2,048, revealing detailed irregular macropores, micropores, and fractures.
Source: Paper SPE 234678.

Carbonate rocks, as complex multiscale porous media, present major imaging challenges because of intricate structures and strong heterogeneity. To address the trade-off between field of view and resolution, we introduce the Swin transformer for image restoration generative adversarial network (SwinIRGAN), a super-resolution framework based on sliding-window attention that captures long-range features efficiently.

The model balances global consistency with high-frequency detail preservation and learns the mapping between low-resolution and high-resolution images.

Using a biogenic carbonate data set, SwinIRGAN achieves 99.48% accuracy in Euler’s number and 97.05% accuracy in higher-resolution extrapolation.

For the multiresolution complex carbonates micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) (MRCCM) data set, the proposed reconstruction and extrapolation workflow improves Euler’s number by 15.59% compared with the baseline.

Results show that SwinIRGAN preserves mineralogical and topological characteristics across scales and provides more reliable digital rocks for pore-scale analysis and flow simulation.


This abstract is taken from paper SPE 234678 by Y. Meng, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Eastern Institute of Technology and Imperial College London; K. Tang, University of New South Wales; H. Xie, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering; Z. Chen, Eastern Institute of Technology; Y. Teng, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering; Y. Chen, Eastern Institute of Technology; C. Li, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering; and S. An, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering and Imperial College London.The paper has been peer reviewed and is available as Open Access in SPE Journal on OnePetro.