StereoCore™ PhotoLog Version 3.2.6 released today

Today we have released a new version of StereoCore™ PhotoLog. The new program contains a lot of updates, bug fixes and new features.
The major new feature which we are rather proud of, is the ability to import logging data into a StereoCore™ PhotoLog project. This may seem like a small thing but in fact we believe that it's going to be a game-changer. What it means is that with nothing but the photographs of the core trays and the logging data originally recorded, it will be possible to audit a core logging project which has already been completed. This means that core logging data can be validated even years after the logging was done, when the actual core has long since weathered.

Lithology, structure and other geotech data can all be imported. A basic sketch of how to do it is included in the help file, we are working hard to update the documentation to be more comprehensive. We have worked particularly hard on structure import, so that α, β angle pairs can be imported as well as dip and dip direction values (dips and dip directions also require that you have a borehole path survey on hand). This means that data from downhole survey instruments such as televiewer data can be imported into a StereoCore™ PhotoLog project and compared with data logged in the core shed, and also visually compared to the core itself, thus enabling one to not only audit logging done in the core shed but also to determine the degree of confidence to be placed in the ATV data.

Another noticeable new feature of the program is the new "Logs Tab", which provides the user with an overview of all the data contained in a StereoCore™ PhotoLog project. You can double click on a row in the logs tab and be taken directly to the image containing that data, so you can easily check data that you're interested in.

Finally, we have added two buttons to the toolbar, the "Calc Stats" button and the "Save" button.

Save does what you'd expect - it saves the project. Calc Stats recalculates all the depths, RQDs etc for the project. What happened was this: we discovered that StereoCore™ PhotoLog is, or rather was, quite slow when working with large projects containing large amounts of data. We tracked the problem down to two things, one was the autosaving code which we run every time the user changes something while entering data, and the other was the depth registration code which we also update frequently (e.g. when the user places a segment in the image). After a bit of thought, we decided that for the moment we will rather allow the user to control those things, since while logging one really doesn't need to necessarily have depths and so forth updating live, and if the user wants to check that the program has captured the data correctly then "Calc Stats" takes only a very short time to run.

Also included in this update are numerous bug fixes. We did unfortunately discover a bug relating to our backup routines. The program has now been updated and the bug has been fixed, we have also contacted all of our existing customers and alerted them to the problem. Fortunately it seems that nobody was affected by it, but these kinds of bugs do crop up from time to time, and we believe that the mark of an ethical software company is to be open and honest with our customers.

Best regards,

The StereoCore™ PhotoLog Team.