ASCII file definitions

Important   Both ASCII- and XML-based formats are used in the application. The ASCII file formats are used for the main data objects and are described in detail. The XML formats are used only for the project file and for sharing objects between solutions and are not described.

This section describes the ASCII file formats for the common data objects. The following geometrical objects can be defined in an ASCII file:

  • Tri-mesh – file extension: .tsurface.ascii
  • SurfaceGrid (mapped to tri-mesh) – file extension: .surfacegrid.ascii or .tsurface.ascii
  • Well (set of wellbores) – file extension: .well.ascii
  • MarkerSet (set of markers) – file extension: .markerset.ascii
  • PolyLineSet (set of polylines) – file extension: .polylineset.ascii
  • VoxelGrid (3D regular grid) – file extension: .voxelgrid.ascii
  • Point Set (Set of points) – file extension: pointset.ascii
  • 3D Mesh (3D tetrahedron grid) – file extension: mesh3d.ascii
  • 2D Grid (2D regular grid) - file extension: grid2d.ascii

The following properties of geometrical objects can also be defined:

  • Log (Log data of a wellbore) – file extension: .log.ascii
  • Well rates (well rate data of a wellbore) – file extension: .rate.ascii
  • Grid properties (properties of a voxel grid or 3D grid) – file extension: .gridproperty.ascii
  • Grid properties of a 3D mesh – file extension: mesh3dproperty.ascii

If multiple different objects are defined in one file, use the file extension .ascii to indicate a general ASCII file. The application will determine which object to load.

The following syntax conventions are used:

  • [ ] Indicates an optional field. If this field is not found in the file, a default value will be applied/calculated.
  • | Indicates an exclusive OR field (one and only one has to be applied).

Keywords are shown in blue for convenience. The main OBJECT keyword is shown in red.

During loading of the ASCII file, the following rules are applied:

  • Apart from the file syntax as described in this document, the following lines can be added to an ASCII file format, without any problems:
    • Empty lines (with or without any spaces).
    • Comment lines, using either the hash symbol (#) or 2 times minus sign (--) as KEYWORDS to indicate a comment line.
  • Keywords and variables are separated by one or more spaces.
  • In an ASCII file, multiple objects can be defined, also of different types, in any order. Depending on the file type to be loaded, one or all object types are loaded.
  • All Northing and Easting coordinates are exported/imported using the coordinate reference system (CRS) as specified in the file; by default this is in world coordinates, using a CRS starting in (0,0,0).