WhereIsIt Overview
Most GPS systems available today are quite useful on the highway and around town. They are great for finding your way in unfamiliar surroundings or finding a pizza joint in a strange town.
Try using your Lowrance, TomTom, Garmin, I-Guidance, Streets and Trips (or any other commercial system for that matter) to get you to the nearest blue room, any given oil well, safe zone, or first aid station in any oilfield in the country and see what happens.
Enter WhereIsIt.
WhatIs WhereIsIt?
As far as we know, WhereIsIt is a first.
WherIsIt is a GPS based Oil Field Navigational Tool. It is similiar to a system we have been using in our oil well testing business since early 2003.
The earlier system, however, was tightly integrated into Anatesco's electronic data acquisition system (TET) and could not be easily unbound from shared databases, code, and other core components.
To make the technology available to others we decided to create a new application from the ground up, rather than attempting an un-binding operation from TET.
The result is a new application with a new name : WhereIsIt
WhereIsIt has many nifty features including live and passive asset tracking, voice guidance, geo fencing, user defined alarms, critical safety information (procedures, forms, contacts, etc.), nearest well dectector, tight interfacing with Google Earth, and much more.
When?
WhereIsIt is now a stand alone application that has been available to the oil industry since November 15, 2005. We have a fully stocked showroom with units ready to show and deliver now.
Why?
WherIsit was released at the request of our clients, fellow contractors and suppliers.
WhereIsIt has proven itself as a great boost to anyone navigating around the oil patch. Obviously, the degree of benefit will be dependent on many variables, and the only way to evaluate the true value of a technology like this is to give it a try in your own application. In general, the more oilfield sites you visit, the more you will love WhereIsIt.
So if you would like to to see what kind of benefits you can get from WhereIsIt please contact us for a free trial (try the contact tab above).
WhereIsIt can get you to the following with ease:
- Oil wells - every well in the state regardless of status - active, idle, proposed, converted, etc.
- Steam injectors, active, idle, etc.
- Water injectors - water source, water disposal, etc.
- Points of interest including the following
- First aid stations
- Emergency assembly areas
- Production offices
- Trash cans
- Emergency exits
- Safe zones
- Smoking areas
- Fresh water / ice
- Wash racks
- Toilets
- Scrap piles
- Foam cleanout facilities
- Eateries, banks, and so on, in nearby areas
- WherIzIt also accepts user defined points of interest (and their locations).
- nearest gas stations
- eatieries
- auto parts stores, electronic stores and so on
- office buildings
Potential users include oil producers, suppliers, contractors, operators, nite shift employees, rotating employees and others who struggle in the field looking for wells or any of the above places.
General Spec's
WhereIsIt will be a developing project for some time. As such, the specs will continually evolving.
There are be several options available. Please look here and in the GPS related forums on this site to keep up to date.
Naturally, if you have any features you would like to see, please let us know.
How?
GPS systems have been around for a while now. Most are hand held or in-dash mounted systems. They all use similar vector type maps distributed by only a few map companies. These maps show little detail of the terrain or land contour. They work very well for what they were designed for, which is finding and navigating to addresses, points of interest, businessess, and so on. These maps are difficult or impossible for the average user to edit or update.
WhereIsIt uses raster type graphic maps. These can be of various types such as scanned contour maps, road maps, aerial photographs, sattelite images, and the like. When properly calibrated, these maps can contain as much information as the user wants to see. Pumping units, Pipelines, buildings, canyons, hills, lakes, tanks, steam generators, are just a few of the objects that can be seen using raster type systems. New objects and be drawn in or added to the system so it can be updated at will. These are great map features and make raster maps ideal for off the main road navigation.
WhereIsIt contains dozens of map libraries contain various types of raster maps. Some of the higher resolution maps are quite large and require more disk space and graphics processor than can be handled by a handheld device. That is why we use full featured laptops in our systems.
A brief description of the WhereIsI system components follows:
- GPS receiver good to within 2 meters 90% of the time
- Laptop computer
- Mounting system (desk or custom floor or seat mount)
- Desk has built in storage bin and serveral options
- built in 400 watt AV power supply, file storage, slide out clipboard
- desk sits in the passenger seat and is held in place with a seatbelt
- custom mounting solutions are also available
- System software
- WhereIst Voice Guided Application
- provides voice guidance to your target
- free live and passive asset tracking (live tracking requires internet connection)
- We use and recommend Verizon's Aircard and their unlimited high speed wireless for California Oilfields
- Optional compatibility layer provides
- time stamped log
- wells visited, time spent
- track or trail
- work done, material used
- work ticket/invoice
- map libraries
- Map libraries are available (or can be quickly created) for virtually all known oilfields world wide
- Map libraries are updated on a daily basis
- location database (wells, points of interest)
- The system currently has over 197,000 well locations in its database. In addition to producing wells, the database also contains injection wells, observation wells, geothermal, gas producers, and proposed wells.
- The location database is updated quarterly
Where?
Although whereisit will work anywhere on the planet, it currently works best in areas we have serviced with our dynamometer or portable well test units. That is because we add targets and other informational detail during the course of our testing that is not available otherwise.
All wells in the state of California and the Sultanate of Oman are in the system database. Inclusion of all wells in the USA is planned for the near future. Maps are available to cover the entire earths surface.
Contact us if you want to use the system outside of California or the USA.
Also available is a handheld version of WhereIsIt called WhatIsIt.
WhatIsIt is designed to work as a complementary tool to the laptop version and adds convenience to the system. For a short time only, both systems will be included for the price of one under the full purchase and service licencing model. We believe the "combo" package will appeal to those who have both full and part time people who venture into the field. Those who work full time in the field will appreciate the speed and power and larger screen, where part time field personel will like the flexibility and convenience of the hand held system.
Due to performance limitations, the handheld version, WhatIsIt, is no longer being supported.
Anatesco is an oilwell service company that has provided testing, monitoring, and optimization of rod pumped wells since 1976. We have several mobile testing units, each capable of testing over 100 wells per day. Using an internally developed GPS based oil field navigational system has had a huge impact on the production of our people. Productivity literally doubled using the GPS mapping and routing functions built into our system. Anatesco is now making this functionality available to others.