One of the strengths of Pore-Cor has always been its graphics. If you the user can visualise a porous structure, even if the visualisation has a greatly simplified geometry, then you can start to explore the pore-level properties, and begin to understand and change what is going on. Virtual reality also makes it possible to see features which cover a very wide range of sizes - often as much as 5 orders of magnitude.

Pore-Cor generates, and Pore-Eye allows viewing, of virtual reality objects described in a language called Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML). You can walk through the resulting images, to find features which are too small to see when looking at the whole unit cell. You can also navigate around to look at particular fluid pathways, to study effects such as breakthrough, preferential flow, and preferential wetting. We and our customers find this so useful that all consultancy reports are now accompanied by the relevant virtual reality files and a viewer.

If you just want to see some still images, then choose a Static snapshot from the table below.

If you have Pore-Cor RS loaded onto your computer, then included with it is a stand-alone VRML viewer called GLView. If you have not yet purchased and installed Pore-Cor RS, then you can still view some structures in virtual reality by downloading the zip file from the middle of the table below. The zip file contains GLView and an example structure.

The rest of this section contains other details, which may be useful but are not essential.

GLView is a stand-alone viewer. You can save the graphics files onto your hard disc, and double click on them to view them - although your computer must have been told to open any file with the .wrl file extensions with the GLView program. (To open files of a particular type with a particular program, open the directory with your file browser. Click Tools | Folder Options | File Types , and instruct it to open all files with .wrl file extensions using GLView. Or right-click the file and Open with ... GLView)

The VRML files in the table below are between 1 and 1.6 MBytes in size. The graphics are hundreds of times more complicated for your computer to process than a typical tomb exploration or tournament shoot-em-up game, so your computer need to be reasonably fast (> 1 GHz), with plenty of RAM and swap space (> 100 MBytes).

If you are interested in VRML virtual reality, try visiting the VRMLworks site. The site is a bit out of date and not all its links are still working, but the site nevertheless contains good advice on viewers and VRML.

If you want to create VRML objects of your own, then a good starting point is to create simple objects by downloading the RenderSoft VRML editor. (Note that this editor will only read VRML 1.0 format files, whereas those from Pore-Cor are VRML 2.0. However, the Rendersoft editor will export VRML 2.0 files. )

Image type	Details	Click to view or download
Static snapshot	Horizontally banded
Static snapshot	Omya OpaCarb A40 precipitated calcium carbonate paper coating formulation, aspect factor 1.5, scale bar 24um, 0.1 s after wetting by hexadecane on the top surface
Static snapshot	Imerys Speswhite clay paper coating formulation, aspect factor 0.6, 0.1 s after wetting by hexadecane on the top surface
Static snapshot	Horizontally layered / laminated structure with large voids at the top
Static snapshot	Hg intrusion in the presence of colloidal occlusion or Kelvin condensation
Static snapshot	Large surface voids grading to smaller subsurface voids, with partial mercury intrusion
Static snapshot	Wetting of butanetriol into structure with double-conical throats
Virtual reality viewer and image	The zip file contains the glview viewer. For instructions on how to operate the viewer, read the readme file included in the zip file. It also contains a structure with a colour map of how the Dinic algorithm thinks the flow is occurring. To see the graphic as a 2D picture, see one of the June 2005 entries in Latest News. The example shown is for a test cell, which has deliberately low porosity and high short-range size correlation. The fluid flow is from the top of the unit cell in the negative Cartesian direction (blue) with some flow in +x and +y directions (yellow). Empty voids are red. Note that the flow solution is not a full solution of all the flow through the entire network (which would fill everything to some extent) - it is effectively an automatically pruned solution of the individual flows through the pore-throat pore arcs, each calculated using a parameterised Navier Stokes equation with a slip flow (Klinkenberg) correction. See if you can track a flow path form the top to the bottom of the unit cell - remembering the periodic boundary conditions (if the fluid goes out one side of the unit cell, it comes back in again at the other).	Flow map and viewer.zip
Virtual reality viewer and image	The zip file contains the glview viewer. For instructions on how to operate the viewer, read the readme file included in the zip file. It also contains a Pore-Eye picture derived from mercury porosimetry measurements made on a sample by the Ecole et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre, Strasbourg. The sample is 2% porous. The aspect ratio of 5 is a realistic value for this type of sample. The sample has been occluded by e.g. colloid precipitation such that all features of 10 microns or less are occluded. These features are shown green. The sample has then be inserted into a mercury porosimeter, and mercury intruded from the top face up to the maximum experimental pressure available. It can be seen that the mercury, shown grey, does not break through to the bottom of the sample.	Granite and viewer.zip
Virtual reality image	Void structure of on an English clay soil, showing several types of non-wetting fluid - see further details
Virtual reality image	Void structure of Omya OpaCarb A40 precipitated calcium carbonate paper coating formulation, showing wetting by hexadecane, 0.1 seconds after initial contact of the top surface by the fluid. The structure is anisotropic, with aspect factor 1.5 (rod-like) .
Virtual reality image	Void structure of Imerys SpesWhite clay paper coating formulation, showing wetting by hexadecane, 0.1 seconds after initial contact of the top surface by the fluid. The structure is anisotropic, with aspect factor 0.6 (platey).
Virtual reality image	Void structure of Clashac outcrop sandstone generated using conical throats, intruded by polymer (yellow) for enhanced oil recovery. Note that subsequently intruded mercury (grey) leaves some small pores and throats empty, e.g. the orange pore 620 and nearby blue throats.
Virtual reality images	Across the middle of the Master data Input form are a range of different types of structure types which can be investigated. Click here for further details of these structures. Click the images below to view them in Virtual Reality.