Patent ID: 8583410

Claim:
A method of obtaining consistent and integrated physical properties of a porous specimen for modeling a reservoir, comprising: receiving an unprepared sample specimen of porous media, wherein the unprepared sample specimen was extracted from the Earth, and the unprepared sample specimen is a whole core section or a core plug; preparing the unprepared sample specimen for imaging, wherein the preparing results in a single sample specimen for use in obtaining parameters for reservoir modeling, wherein the preparing comprises: determining whether to remove a portion of the unprepared sample specimen, wherein if it is determined that the portion of the unprepared sample specimen should be removed, removing the portion of the unprepared sample specimen that is representative of a core of the unprepared sample specimen resulting in the single sample specimen, and if it is determined that the portion of the unprepared sample specimen should not be removed, the unprepared sample specimen is used as the single sample specimen, imaging the single sample specimen to generate a three-dimensional tomographic image of the sample specimen; segmenting the image into pixels, each pixel representing a pore space or a grain; wherein the segmenting renders a three-dimensional digital model of the single sample specimen; performing, using a computer, a set of computations based on the three-dimensional digital model of the single sample specimen, wherein the set of computations determines a plurality of physical properties of the single sample specimen, and wherein the single sample specimen is not destroyed in said method and remains intact throughout the method.