Underground drilling involves drilling a wellbore through a formation deep in the Earth using a drill bit connected to a drill string. Azimuthal imaging is used to map sides of the wellbore. In the past, this was used in vertical wellbores using wireline approaches. Data collected from the wellbore was referenced to north, hence the phrase “azimuthal imaging,” and the data was obtained after drilling was complete. In the geosteering, directional drilling approaches today, reference is no longer to north in non-vertical drill paths but to “up”—the side of the wellbore closest to the surface. However, these tools are still referred to as azimuthal measurement tools. Further, these tools may now be used in “logging while drilling” (LWD) scenarios to collect wellbore and formation characteristics during the drilling process.
There are many different types of detectors (i.e., sensors) that may be located at a bottom hole assembly and that may detect information regarding sides of the wellbore. The detectors collect data (e.g., detect incoming radiation with gamma ray sensors) and bin them into some number of selected sectors according to a radial plot. However, due to bandwidth constraints in transmissions to a surface controller, only a small amount of the measurement data is typically transmitted to the surface controller. For example, where a radial plot is divided into 16 or 8 equal “bins,” typically only two or four sectors total are transmitted to the surface, for example only an up/down (2 sectors) or up/down/left/right (four sectors). But generally it is more beneficial to transmit data for an image (e.g., a gamma image) in as many sectors as possible so as to add finer granularity so that more features may be resolved for further use/interpretation.
The present disclosure is directed to systems, devices, and methods that overcome one or more of the shortcomings of the prior art.