. . . IRAS NEWSLETTER #2, 19MMM2001

. . .

IRASNET NEWS LETTER ISSUE # 2
WEEK ENDING FEB 18, 2001

I have not received any feed back from corporate (Melbourne Group) regarding issues raised in last weeks newsletter so I have just been proceeding on best guess.

PILOT PROGRAM

Prototypes

Without the input from a mechanical + electronic engineer, draftsman and machinists it is very hard to nail down final cost's, or time, to build the next generation prototypes. I have approached Nicholas Stone of Automated Information Systems (See Directors & Friends for details) to consider taking over the design, and construction of the next 2 prototypes. Nick has been working with the IRAS project for the last 2.5 years and is currently working as an independent contractor. He is based in the facilitates of the National Centre for Engineering and Agriculture, which is part of the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba campus. This centre is a self contained R&D centre with it's own machine shop and design personal. http://www.ncea.org.au

I have approached Nick to consider taking over the design and development of the Cuttings and Core Unit working from his current facility. This will then give the project the best chance of getting the next generation prototypes finished at the fastest pace given this centre specialises in prototype fabrications and the IRAS units are no more complex then what they normally work on.

Nick will begin working on a detailed development budget starting from the week beginning February 27th, 2001. I have made arrangements for the current prototype to be transported up to the campus for Nick and his team to use during their planning period.

Computers

Work on the quote was progressed this week with most of the time being taken up finding suppliers of the components needed to build the computer equipment.

I have decided to structure the computer equipment into 2 categories:

1. The first category is "entry level". This involves all of the necessary equipment to capture, process, backup, serve, host and store digital images using both the core imaging, and the cuttings prototypes.
2. The second category involves cache storage. This is the storage necessary to hold the processed images for internet viewing. Each unit will have a holding capacity of 450Gb's.

Once at this point we will have the maximum flexibility to move in any direction quickly.

Development Testing

This week I started evaluation trials on the IRAS DATA STORE. These test are being conducted using an IDE RAID controller with 3 ATA100 IDE drives. Theoretical speeds are meant to equal 100MB/sec. Initial tests indicate very effective network transfer speeds of up to 6 MB/sec over a 100Mbit network. Test will be on going to work out the final configuration. These test will only provide a theoretical result due to the lack of funding to acquire the actual equipment that is being specified for the final DATA STORE.

Internet Services/Server

The current ISP that is hosting our website is becoming unstable to the point that we will need to consider moving the current web server. Several options for an Internet connection were found with the lowest cost option being around the $5,000 mark, up to $35,000. Band width varying from 256Kb to 1Mb.

The server configuration is requiring some serious updating. At the moment only users that logon with Internet Explorer 5.0 and above can view the JAVA part of the web site. Netscape doesn't work and will need to be fixed given most of the American logon's are with Netscape. We are taking some bad hits on this one.

Accommodation

I have located 2 possible office locations that can be rented for a 6 month period. Both are local to myself and I will have full pricing by the end of next week.

Consultants

Andrew Niven

Andrew has been advised that he will be put on the Melbourne Groups payroll effective March 1st, 2001 for a 6 month period. To this end he has given notice to his current place of employment.

Borland

A meeting with Mr. Christopher M Mendes, Practice Manager, for Tuesday morning has been scheduled. Andrew Niven, and myself will be attending. This meeting will give Christopher a chance to better understand the nature of our project and I shall be passing onto him a list of targets and goals that will enable him to quote on. His company is well placed to provide us the following information regarding the software that has been written by Andrew Niven for the IRAS project:

1. A full commercial evaluation of the current IRAS project software.
2. An indication of the potential global market outside of petroleum and mining for the software both as modules and as a complete package.
3. A critical development path plan for completing the software to a stage for running our pilot program in both financial and human resources not to mention time.
4. An assessment of Andrew Nivens skills and a recommendation on his monthly remuneration.

Patents

This is now becoming a very high priority category. As mentioned below we are now starting to introduce our work to some very large research facilities and some that are already working towards our current positions. Given some of the feed back from John Pohlman I estimate that we could have less than 12 months head start and we need to be starting with our patent protection sooner than later.

Allen Evens is primed and waiting.

New Contacts

During this last week several new contacts were made.
Via Roice Nelson:

• Mr. Bryan Bentz
  Computer Scientist
  Bentz Engineering
  bentz@bentz-engineering.com
  1-860-536-1477
  I managed to give Bryan a "Talk Through" of our site and a basic background to the software image serving benefits. Roice feels Bryan would be well placed to offer the group a marketing option into none mining and petroleum related markets. I will be doing a follow up with Bryan this week.

• Had a really interesting afternoon yesterday. Spoke with an acquaintance in the University of Oklahoma core labs. He is really interested in our stuff, so I referred him to the web site. He, in turn, referred me to one of the people responsible for maintaining the core repository for BP/Amoco, whom I will called but had to leave a message. I was also referred to the two gentlemen who run the core research facilities at the University of Oklahoma on behest of BP. They occupy the old Amoco research facility in Tulsa. It turns out that one of them is the guy who set up the research facility for Amoco, whom I know from the past, and the other one is a former professor from University of Colorado who left CU just as I was starting my doctorate work there.
  
  I called him and we had about a 90 minute discussion of what they are doing, what we are doing, and how we can do it together. It took a bit of remembering, but he finally visualized who I was and even remembered my research topics. Quite a memory.
  
  They have just put together a 12-company consortium to fund their core research. They are assembling a petrophysical database which is designed to attach to well data and to provide all of the analytical results tied to depth, features, production, or whatever.
  
  When I described what we are up to, he was extraordinarily interested as he also sees the synergy between our work and theirs. I also referred him to the web site. In short, we will be exploring ways to get their input into our development process. They are also doing both ultraviolet and infrared light research into determination of rock and kerogen properties, and they are also working with point laser measurements and a bunch of the other stuff we are talking about including. They seem willing to work with us to make sure that we have the "best of the best" and most up to date techniques designed in to what we will be able to offer.
  
  The OU lab would be a perfect joint development partner, if this comes to pass, as they have credibility, resources, and their own funding. Of course, they know the bunch at the BEG and elsewhere, so we should be able to cooperate with all of them to our benefit. I will be following up with OU and with BP to get some more numbers and ancillary data. I have been invited to Tulsa to spend time in the labs and to address their group regarding how we might work to common ends. I have tactfully delayed this until we are actually running, but we will be getting together at the upcoming AAPG. I am looking forward to that.

• Francis Cox
  Team Leader - Vision Systems Group MLA
  Brisbane
  Ph 61 7 3804 9814
  Mob 61 418 872 873
  Email fcox@vqa.com.au
  
  Vision Systems Group is a division of Meat and Livestock Australia. It was formed from a research group built over 4 years that was developing and commercialising vision analysis technology for the red meat industry. The team has been responsible for several systems in use in Australia which identify and measure image parameters of beef and lamb in a harsh environment and produce real-time predictions of quality and quantity of the meat content realised further downstream in the process chain. The predictions and measurements are based on a combination of precise colour and dimensional measurements with algorithms regressed from extensive statistical trials. In the development history, 5 international patents have been registered. There is a pool of highly developed talent for image analysis, software engineering and colour calibration expertise.
  
  I have made arrangements to visit this facility this week and explore their capacity to develop OCR technology for the project. Francis also mentioned their interest in our image serving technology.

• Mr. Bob Snieder - Intro to BEG currently waiting for Roice Nelson to follow up with BEG directly. should here back from Roice in Week # 4.
• Saudis - This is a John Pohlman contact and it should be acted upon once a corporate strategy has been determined.
• R & D Groups - Again John Pohlman contacts with industry R & D groups with big budgets and an active interest in core imaging. This needs to be followed up.
• Santos - Chris Singfield contact currently on hold waiting for policy from corporate.
• Mr. Kevin O'Hara - Director of Centrex Technologies out of Sydney. He represents medical interest. Currently on hold waiting for response from corporate.

That's all for now!

. . .

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