In the past, when you wanted the geology in your 3D drillholes to be understandable at a glance, your workflow was a little tricky. In most cases, you had two options. The first? Implement a workaround that took more time than you’d like. The second? Use a massive software package with the tools to highlight the subsurface material in your 3D drillholes. That sounded great until you realized the program was packed with features you didn’t need, took ages to learn, and came with a hefty price tag. For many initiatives, these tools were complete overkill, creating more confusion than the subsurface layers you initially bought the software to visualize. 

Regardless of the option you chose, in both situations, you were stuck spending more time on the design process than on the insights. Neither option was ideal when you were on a deadline. But what if you could skip the hassle and visualize the material in your 3D drillholes easily? Fortunately, now you can.

With 3D drillhole text keywords—a new feature in Surfer—it’s easier than ever to pinpoint subsurface materials, whether you’re visualizing lithology, soil types, artifacts, or anything else below the surface.

To easily illustrate the geology in your 3D drillholes, all it takes is a few steps. Just include text keywords in the interval table for your drillhole data; it can be anything from “sandstone” and “clay” to time periods like “bronze age.” Then, load it into Surfer along with your other drillhole data. Once in the program, simply check the box to show your keywords, click the box to create a legend, and indicate which data field has your keywords. Then, you’re done. Surfer will automatically apply the keywords to your 3D drillhole intervals, assign colors to each keyword so you don’t have to do it, and display an accurate legend so you can skip the process of creating one.

When Shane O’Neill, Principal hydrogeologist at O’Neill Hydro-Geotechnical Engineering, checked out this new feature as a beta user, he told Kari, “The workflow was excellent. I was able to use my own data to generate similar plots to your instructions. I had collar, survey, lithology, formation, and RQD data. All worked, and I was able to switch between all the different data sets.”

If you want to edit your 3D drillhole text keywords, you can also do that without any hassles. In just a few clicks, you can apply any color to each keyword, rearrange the order of keywords, and even rename them to different phrases that resonate best with your audience. So, want to update your 3D drillhole text keywords to illustrate subsurface materials better? Do it without worrying it’ll take a ton of time.