Automatic Sinusoidal Curves Detection in Borehole Images Using the Iterated Local Search Algorithm

Borehole stability is one of the main factors influencing the success of an oil well drilling process. Fractures and beddings (sedimentary layers) are important stability features commonly identified in borehole imaging tools. Their visual presentation in the 2D Ultrasonic Borehole Imager (UBI) consists of sinusoidal curves, in which automatic detection is not trivial. Several previous works proposed different solutions, most of them based on the Hough transform (HT). Nevertheless, HT based solutions have a substantial computational cost. In this work, we propose an innovative approach to identify the harmonic curves related to fractures and sedimentary layers in borehole images based in the Iterative Local Search heuristic, reducing the computational cost of the task significantly.