Patent attributes
A device and method used to image cylindrical fluid conduits, such as pipes, wellbores and tubulars, with ultrasound transducers then compress that data for storage or visualization. The compressed images may be stored on the tool and/or transmitted over telemetry, enabling the device to inspect and record long pipes or wells in high resolution on a single trip. This allow the ultrasound imaging tool to record much longer wells in higher resolution than would otherwise be possible. An outward-facing radial array of ultrasound transducers captures cross-sectional slices of the conduit to create frames from scan lines. The frames are compressed by applying a demodulation process and spatial conversion process to the scan lines. Video compression is applied to the to the demodulated, spatially converted ultrasound images to return compressed images.
