Patent ID: 7921916

Claim:
A method for communicating measurement data from a well, comprising: applying a downhole transformation to measurement data collected by sensors in the well, wherein applying the downhole transformation comprises converting the measurement data collected by the sensors into blocks, where at least one of the blocks contains portions of the measurement data that are expected to vary more than portions of the measurement data contained in at least another of the blocks; passing the transformed measurement data through an intermediate communications device that applies a lossy compression algorithm on the blocks; transforming data received from the intermediate communications device based on application of the lossy compression algorithm on the blocks so as to produce meaningful data at a destination communications device; wherein: applying the lossy compression algorithm comprises forwarding only blocks of the transformed measurement data that have changed by at least a predetermined threshold amount with respect to the prior corresponding versions of the blocks containing respective portions of prior measurement data from sensors; and transforming the received data comprises identifying blocks of the measurement data not transmitted by the intermediate communications device; and using prior versions of the identified blocks already present at the destination communications device to produce the meaningful data.