Automatic Detection of Fractures Based on Optimal Path Search in Well Logging Images

Reservoir fractures are essential locations to gather oil and gas. Recently, imaging logging technology has become a mainstream method for obtaining stratigraphic information. This paper proposed a combined optimal path search strategy to effectively identify and extract the fracture information in well logging images. Specifically, the threshold segmentation of logging images is used to obtain the binary image. In addition, the identification of connected fractures in the logging image is transformed into the optimal path search, and the identification and extraction of reservoir fractures are realized by constructing the optimal path between the two ends of fractures. Finally, an improved ant colony algorithm is applied to filter irrelevant information and extract fractures automatically by recording all the ants’ exploration trajectories in the ant colony. Compared with previous approaches, the proposed method can eliminate irrelevant background features and merely reserve pixels corresponding to fractures. Simultaneously, relative to the conventional strategy, the time consumption is reduced by more than 98%. The findings of this study can help for better extracting fractures automatically and reducing manual workload.