From:	Bruce R. Meyer, Meyer & Associates, Inc.
To:	Meyer Hydraulic Fracturing Software Users
Subject:	Meyer 2009 Software Suite version 5.50
Date:	April 2009 (latest release dated July 2009)

Dear Users:

We are pleased to announce the release of the Meyer 2009 suite of software version 5.50 dated April 2009.

Meyer 2009 is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP SP1, and Windows 2000 SP3. The minimum system requirements are listed in Table 1.1 of the User’s Guide. See the Meyer Fracturing Software User’s Guide Section 1.3 for additional instructions on installing the Meyer Software.

Meyer 2009 represents a solid year’s worth of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes. Here are just a few of the highlights. (You can find much more detail in the section “Meyer 2009 RELEASE1,” below.)

New Simulator: MShale

We are pleased to introduce a new simulator, MShale, with this release.

MShale is a specialized fracturing simulator designed to simulate multiple, cluster, and discrete type fractures in shale and coal bed methane (CBM) formations. Discrete fractures in naturally fractured or faulted formations can be modeled by specifying a fracture network grid to simulate fracture propagation in the major vertical, minor vertical, and horizontal fracture planes (i.e., not just perpendicular to the minimum horizontal stress).

The simulation boundary condition, which forces multiple fractures to be created, assumes that once the pressure exceeds the minimum stress in a plane perpendicular to the natural fracture, a hydraulic fracture will initiate and start to propagate.

MShale can also be used as a diagnostic tool to compare Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) numerical results with microseismic data.

All Apps

• Unicode. The Meyer Software now uses Unicode as the internal representation for all text. This change has multiple benefits:

  • Unicode support ends the need to configure a system in “Russian” mode to support the Russian version of the software (or, indeed, the need for any system configuration changes at all for multi-language support).

  • Customers in different language speaking countries can now exchange Meyer data files without corrupting the text in these files. Any language version of the software can now read and write files written in any other language.

  • It is now possible to add Greek and mathematical symbols to the plots and the report.

• Importing Files Between Compatible Apps. The File | Open screen now allows importing files between MFrac, MFrac-Lite, MPwri, MWell, and MShale.

• Remembering Open Plots. The apps now remember which plots were open on File | Save, and will reopen the same plots on File | Open.

• Changes to Installer Layout. Meyer 2009 Setup splits the installed files between the Program Files folder and the new Program Data folder. This change was required to ensure future 64-bit compatibility.

• Dropping Pentium II Support. This is the last release of the Meyer Software that will support the Pentium II CPU. All future releases will require a Pentium III or later, so that we can use the advanced numerical computing features found in more recent CPUs.

MFrac

• Recirculation Stages. MFrac now supports multi-stage treatments: for instance, it is now possible to recirculate stages between the minifrac and the main frac jobs.

• Show All Available Real-Time Data. MFrac plots now show all available Real-Time data while the simulator is catching up to MView.

MPwri

• Damage Model Database. Meyer 2009 greatly expands MPwri’s ability to model internal and external filter cakes by adding a new Damage Model Database. This is documented further under MPwri Changes, as well as in §J.6 of the Meyer User’s Guide.

• Per-Stage Particulate Concentrations. MPwri can now model injecting different concentrations of particulates in each stage (including Real-Time support). Meyer 2008 and earlier had one particulate concentration set for the whole job.

MinFrac

• Multiple Right-Axis Derivatives. MinFrac now supports plotting more than one right axis derivative curve (simultaneously) on Regression plots. This makes it possible to perform multiple Regression analyses using just one plot.

• More Slope Lines. Added two more slope lines to the MinFrac Regression plots.

MView

• Filtering On Missing Columns Now Optional. MView can now replace missing columns with “0,” rather than filtering out lines with missing columns.

• Recover Real-Time Data. The Recover Real-Time Data command is now available “more often,” and now shows a progress bar while recovering.

• Status Bar. MView now features a status bar which displays the number of Real-Time data lines received, translated (i.e., successfully interpreted according to Data Sets | Setup), and filtered out.

Meyer Data Acquisition

• Reliability Improvements. As part of the conversion to Unicode, the internals of the Meyer Data Acquisition Toolbar (MACQ) were completely rewritten. Although there were virtually no user-visible “obvious” changes to this application, it received over 50 enhancements and bug fixes of its own during Meyer 2009 development.

In addition to the highlights listed here, Meyer 2009 features over 115 additional enhancements and bug fixes (not counting the Meyer Data Acquisition changes mentioned above) and numerous internal quality improvements.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Bruce R. Meyer, Ph.D., P.E.
President
+1 (724) 224-1440
meyer@mfrac.com

All Apps

• [Enhancement] The Meyer Software now uses Unicode as the internal representation for all text. This change has multiple benefits: (#2087)

  • Unicode support ends the need to configure a system in “Russian” mode to support the Russian version of the software (or, indeed, the need for any system configuration changes at all for multi-language support).

  • Customers in different language speaking countries can now exchange Meyer data files without corrupting the text in these files. Any language version of the software can now read and write files written in any other language.

  • It is now possible to add Greek and mathematical symbols to the plots and the report.

• [Enhancement] The apps now remember which plots were open on File | Save, and will reopen the same plots on File | Open. (#2175)

• [Enhancement] The File | Open screen now allows importing files between MFrac, MFrac-Lite, MPwri, MWell, and MShale. This feature has technically been available since Meyer 2005, but the apps were never listed in the drop-down list of compatible file formats—the import had to be specified manually. (#1989)

• [Enhancement] When loading text files, the apps now auto-detect the file encoding, and handle both Unicode and pre-Unicode text file input correctly. Input file encoding detection and line breaks now work exactly the same way for MView, MLog, MinFrac, and Meyer Data Acquisition.

  Text file format auto-detection relies on the presence of a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM), which matches the behavior of common Windows applications such as Notepad. Files without a BOM are assumed to be encoded in the Windows “language for non-Unicode programs.”

  The following Unicode text file formats are supported: UTF-8, UTF-16LE, and UTF-16BE.

• [Fix] Certain corrupt files could make it impossible to open the file browser screen. For example, a file with a corrupt pathname in MView Data Sets | Setup could make it impossible to browse to a different file. (r29915)

• [Fix] Fields technically present on the input screens, but hidden due to the current options settings, could be error checked. (#2222)

• [Fix] Fixed a bug saving over an existing file in an offline folder. (#2061)

• [Fix] Fixed crash when failing to acquire a temporary folder. (#1739)

• [Fix] Fixed “failed to acquire upgrade lock file” error message when starting all the apps at once on a new system. (#1357)

• [Fix] Incorrect error message (“the upgrade operation was canceled”) if saving an upgraded file failed (e.g., due to disk full or access denied). (#2167)

• [Fix] Links to PDF documentation in the Help menu could be incorrectly enabled if Adobe Acrobat Reader was installed, but later removed. (#2188)

• [Fix] Saving a file over an existing file with no dots in the name (i.e., with no extension) would incorrectly rename the file with a .zip extension. The “Recent Files” list would then lose track of this file. (r29594)

• [Fix] The apps could not save multipart files with the ‘[’ character in the middle of the filename. (#2099)

Databases

• [Enhancement] The database internals have been completely rewritten during the conversion to Unicode. Since the new internals are based on the industry-standard database programming language—SQL—third parties should now find it much easier to integrate with our databases.

• [Enhancement] Added new options corresponding to sort by “Treatment Schedule” in MFrac:

  1. Sort by “Options” (MProd—non-Darcy database)

  2. Sort by “Proppant Criteria” (MFrac—non-Darcy database).

• [Enhancement] Database browser now features an adjustable splitter bar between the user and system databases. (#1462)

• [Enhancement] Databases now remember the last selected user and system database entries, and the last selected sort order.

• [Enhancement] User databases are now shared between all language versions of the apps.

• [Enhancement] User database files can now be marked “read-only” (in Windows Explorer) to prevent editing the user databases.

• [Fix] I/O errors while importing database entries (e.g., from .fie files) no longer corrupt the user database. This also prevents corruption when importing a corrupt file (#1111, #1672).

• [Fix] Meyer 2008 and earlier did not auto-export database entries on File | Save (for conflict detection) properly in the following cases: (#2169)

  1. When adding a new fluid, proppant, or acid type through the Graphical Treatment Schedule.

  2. When switching Options between Input and Auto Design.

• [Fix] The database code conflict screen would allow the user to enter eight characters when renaming a database code, rather than the actual database limit of seven characters, leading to the following bug:

  If the user database contained an entry named “ABCDEFG,” and the user renamed an incoming entry to “ABCDEFGH,” the existing “ABCDEFG” would be silently overwritten. (#2125)

• [Fix] The databases now support editing in more than one app at a time. Prior to Meyer 2009, editing the same database in more than one app at the same time could lead to corruption and data loss.

• [Fix] The non-Darcy “a,” “b,” and “c” factors in Proppant Criteria (MFrac), Options (MProd), and the Proppant Calculator did not respect the user’s international decimal setting. (#2160)

Installer

• [Enhancement] All Meyer 2009 .exe files, as well as the .msi installer database itself, are now digitally signed. This allows us to distribute patches from the Software Updates page on our web site, as well as making it easier to detect corrupted installations.

• [Enhancement] Meyer 2009 Setup splits the installed files across the Program Files folder (as before), and the new Program Data folder. This change was required to ensure future 64-bit compatibility. (#2186)

• [Enhancement] Since the new Microsoft-recommended Program Data folder is hard to find (it’s a hidden folder), the apps now offer to copy sample files to My Documents the first time they are run in a new user account.

  This change also alleviates problems with Vista and locked-down installations of Windows 2000 and XP, where the user could not overwrite sample files installed to the Program Files folder.

  The sample files can be installed to My Documents at any time using the new Tools | Install Sample Files... command.

Plots

• The apps will now prompt for an international text encoding when opening a pre-Meyer 2009 plot template file. To suppress this prompt, open the template file and re-save it as a Meyer 2009 template.

• Removed obsolete feature: “Axis Title Templates.” This feature was a workaround for MView plot configuration problems which have subsequently been fixed. (r29448)

• [Enhancement] Default Plot Attributes (colors, fonts, line widths, etc.) are now shared between all the apps. Previously, changing default colors or line widths consistently between the apps required opening this screen and making identical changes in each individual app. (#2202)

• [Enhancement] It is now possible to open a plot template in a “compatible” app other than the app that created the template (e.g., MFrac, MPwri, MWell). Unsupported plots will simply be skipped.

  Opening templates in a “compatible” app was technically possible prior to Meyer 2009, but the Load Template command would halt and display an error message when it found an unsupported plot.

  (Note that this new compatibility feature only works for Meyer 2009 format templates. Templates saved in Meyer 2008 and earlier versions will still halt and display an error message for unsupported plots.)

• [Enhancement] Plot Templates no longer close open windows before prompting to re-run the simulator, and/or before checking if the selected template file is invalid or corrupt. (#1842)

• [Enhancement] Plot Templates no longer have a separate “name” and “filename.” Instead, there is just one filename. (The “name” was a holdover from the days of 8.3 character MS-DOS filenames.) (#2136)

• [Enhancement] The apps now remember the user’s custom colors. (#2176)

• [Enhancement] The Contour Grid Size setting is now shared between all apps with contour plots. (#2190)

• [Fix] Bar plot legends were not visible unless they were positioned within the plot frame. (#2180)

• [Fix] Fixed an “internal error” crash when opening a plot template with an unsupported Simulation Data Window. (#2226)

  • Example: Saving the Fracture Characteristics window in a template with MFrac, then opening the template in MWell, would trigger this crash.

• [Fix] Fixed duplicate menu entry when overwriting an existing plot template file. (#2011)

• [Fix] Fixed long-standing keyboard navigation problems in plots on database or input screens: (#2206)

  1. Enter or Esc while editing a text block (or a Graphical Arrange legend) could unintentionally close the screen.

  2. Delete (to delete a text block) was sometimes ignored.

  3. F4 didn’t always switch the Mouse Mode.

  4. F5 zoomed out two levels at a time.

• [Fix] Fixed problems loading Simulation Data Windows from plot templates: (#2179)

  1. Simulation data windows didn’t respect the window size specified in the template. Instead they came up at whatever size they were using last, ignoring the size in the template.

  2. If any simulation data window was covering all or part of a plot when saving a template, upon loading that template all simulation data windows would be covering that plot, even if some of them were originally underneath the plot.

• [Fix] Loading a plot template no longer silently changes the Default Plot Attributes. The attributes still change “in memory” when the template is loaded, but they return to their original values after a File | New or File | Open. (#2202)

• [Fix] 100% CPU usage spike with auto-scaling disabled on at least one axis, and data that would normally require auto-scaling present on that axis. (#2181)

• [Fix] On modern (high DPI) printers, lines with a width of “1” could be too thin to see, especially when printed in light colors. We fixed this by defaulting the “Adjust line thickness when printing” option (in Default Plot Attributes) to “on,” and making this option behave correctly for thin lines. (#2185)

• [Fix] Zoomed plots now save correctly in templates. (#2223)

Proppant Calculator

• [Enhancement] The Proppant Calculator now displays the Calculated Fracture Conductivity, kfwf. (#2216)

• [Enhancement] The Proppant Calculator settings are now shared between all apps that use the Proppant Calculator. Previously, these settings were stored on an app-by-app basis. (#2144)

Reports

• [Fix] Fixed problems with the report HTML export handling of image files:

  1. The HTML export did not work properly with image filenames containing the characters ‘&’, ‘#’, or ‘;’. (#1760)

  2. The HTML export now uses relative image pathnames (rather than hard-coding the drive letter and path where the HTML file was originally exported), and stores images in a subfolder. These two changes ensure that the image file will move along with the HTML file when dragging and dropping files in Windows Explorer. (#1789)

  3. The report image file browser now features an “All Image Files” filter, rather than requiring the user to know if an individual file is in PNG, JPEG, or BMP format. Also, the image file browser now handles files with an incorrect file extension. (#1416)

• [Fix] Meyer 2008 and earlier did not display JPEG files saved in the CMYK color space correctly. (Such files are mainly produced by Adobe publishing tools.) (#2138)

Spreadsheets

• [Fix] Multiple fixes to Cut, Copy, Paste, Import, and Export: (#2174)

  1. Cut, Copy, and Paste now work properly with a selection made from the bottom right upwards.

  2. Cut no longer clears the selection (causing data loss) if the Copy part of the operation fails.

  3. Import and Export no longer include extraneous rows or columns (i.e., “hidden” rows or columns that are not actually part of the spreadsheet) in the Import/Export operation.

  4. Paste and Import no longer overwrite disabled cells (e.g., in the Auto Design Treatment Schedule). (#920)

• [Fix] The spreadsheet alternate background color could get out of sync when the user sorted cells by clicking on the header. (#2150)

Units

• [Enhancement] Increased the maximum time units value from 10 years to 50 years in MFast, MFrac, and MView. (#2124)

• [Fix] Several screens were displaying proppant permeability in Permeability units, not Proppant Permeability units:

  1. MFrac: The Proppant Design Summary table on the report;

  2. MProd: The Fracture Permeability column in the NPV/Multi-Case Fracture Characteristics and Variable Fracture Conductivity screens, and their corresponding tables on the report;

  3. Non-Darcy Database: The Non-Darcy Database Code Preview screen (for setting up the preview plot).

  (#2063, #2081, #2082)

MFast

• [Fix] Certain cases could cause the plots to generate millions of points, spiking CPU usage to 100%. (#2127)

• [Fix] Fixed a crash on a corrupt file (i.e., with invalid numbers entered) when viewing the plots. (#2089)

• [Fix] MFast Data Description allowed entering more characters than could actually be stored in the file. Furthermore, the MFast report did not show all characters stored in the file. (#2089)

MFrac

Many of the fixes in this section also apply to MPwri and MWell.

• [Enhancement] Added a Wellbore Scaling Factor option, as well as an option to orient the wellbore parallel to the fracture(s), to the 3D plot configuration. (#2191)

• [Enhancement] Auto-scale and group the Graphical Treatment Schedule’s Y axis curves according to volume, rate, and concentration. (#2075, #2077)

• [Enhancement] Converted leakoff calculations to a fully implicit solution to improve accuracy at earlier iterations. (#2166)

• [Enhancement] MFrac now detects and reports invalid or corrupt output data immediately upon loading a file.

• [Enhancement] MFrac now includes the Peng-Robinson equation of state for calculating the density of N₂ and CO₂, in addition to the van der Waals equation which we have always supported. (#2171)

• [Enhancement] MFrac now supports multi-stage treatments: for instance, it is now possible to recirculate stages between the minifrac and the main frac jobs. (#2066)

• [Enhancement] MFrac plots now show all available Real-Time data while the simulator is catching up to MView. (#2137)

• [Enhancement] More reliable handling of LAS files with wrapped lines.

• [Fix] A case with a negative rate stage could lead to a negative total proppant mass, causing a crash. (#2057)

• [Fix] Attempting to stop the simulator in Real-Time mode with “Synchronize Well Soln.” enabled caused multiple Stop prompts to appear before the simulator finally came to rest. (#2103)

• [Fix] Changing the zone selections on the Multilayer tab could cause spurious prompts to save the file, and/or to re-run the simulator. (#2193)

• [Fix] Disable and adjust columns in the Real-Time Treatment Schedule while MFrac receives Real-Time data from MView. (#2073)

• [Fix] Fixed a glitch drawing the zoom rectangle in the Graphical Treatment Schedule while receiving Real-Time data. (#2069)

• [Fix] Fixed a glitch where more than one stage could appear to be selected in the Graphical Treatment Schedule. (#2074)

• [Fix] Fixed corrupt line endings (CRCRLF) in the 3D plot output. Also, the Three Dimensional Plot command now reports any errors encountered while writing the VRML file. (#1824)

• [Fix] Fixed crash when running the simulator with Fluid Type Dependent Leakoff and less than three fluid loss layers defined. (#2135)

• [Fix] Fixed crash when switching Options from Proppant to Acid with the Graphical Treatment Schedule open. (#1834)

• [Fix] Fixed dragging the right-hand edge of the stage with the current end of Real-Time data in the Graphical Treatment Schedule. (#2065)

• [Fix] For cases with multiple parallel fractures, incorrect fracture volumes and proppant masses were shown in the treatment plots during shut-in. (#2139)

• [Fix] For viscous dominated fracture propagation, when pressure in the fracture dropped below propagation pressure (i.e., critical stress intensity) during closure, the lateral width profile could flip from an ellipsoidal shape to a parabolic shape. The true width profile is in between these two shapes. (#2172)

• [Fix] Graphical Treatment Schedule stages were either invisible (Meyer 2006 through Meyer 2008) or used a random background color (Meyer 2005 and earlier) when the Default Plot Attributes contained a custom background color. (#2134)

• [Fix] Inactive zones are no longer error checked. (#248)

• [Fix] In the Wellbore Hydraulics screen, the Wellbore Volume Reference depth and the BHTP Reference depth are now always fixed to the measured depth when the Horizontal Wellbore option is enabled. (#2187)

• [Fix] Log File Import (from Rock Properties or Fluid Loss) could generate a zone with zero thickness. (#2154)

• [Fix] Made the Proppant and Acid Summary Treatment Schedule tables in the report more consistent. In particular, the fluid type column in the Acid version of this table was mislabeled as “Stage Type.” (#2086)

• [Fix] MFrac could not open the report (stating that the output data was invalid or corrupt) for multi-zone NPV cases with the first zone marked inactive. (#2145)

• [Fix] MFrac ran forever for multi-layer cases where a frac packed off, but then reopened. (#2148)

• [Fix] Multi-Zone Width Profile Plots should have been using round numbers for their Y axis labels. (#2168)

• [Fix] On the 3D plot, the Width Scaling Factor option did not scale the width on horizontal fractures if either the Show Wellbore or Show Lithology Layers options were enabled. (#2149)

• [Fix] On Windows 2000 and XP, the legend on the Width Profiles (Lateral) Fracture Characteristics plot was sometimes drawn vertically instead of horizontally. (#2178)

• [Fix] Pasting multiple values into the Treatment Schedule Variable column did not always compute the correct values for the other Treatment Schedule columns. Also, the Variable column was enabled in certain cases where it should have been grayed out. (#2054)

• [Fix] The “Angle vs. MD” Wellbore Deviation Plot (in Wellbore Hydraulics) crashed with more than one row in the Deviation table and the Linear Segments option enabled. (#2219)

• [Fix] The bottom of the tubing can now be below the bottom of an inactive perf zone. (#988)

• [Fix] The depth and width scales on the 3D plot could appear squashed when fracture length was much greater than fracture height. (#2215)

• [Fix] The Hydro-Carbon Saturation and Irreducible Water Saturation columns were reversed in the Fluid Loss table on the report. (#2155)

• [Fix] The Log File Importing module used the wrong unit conversion for property values with the source set to “Calculate.” (#2152)

• [Fix] The MFrac Real-Time | Add Log Entry command now works correctly. This command had been non-functional since Meyer 2005. (#2094)

• [Fix] The Multiple Fractures tab (in Zones) was only error checked when actually exiting the tab—not when closing the Zones screen, nor when running the simulator (i.e., after opening a file already containing bad data). (#2157)

• [Fix] The Reference Name column in the MFrac Wellbore Hydraulics screen allowed entering more characters than could actually be stored in the file. The extra characters would then be cut off upon hitting Enter. (#2089)

• [Fix] The Surface and Bottomhole Stage Volume treatment plots were missing titles for Acid Foam cases. (#2184)

• [Fix] The Time and Pressure Dependent Fluid Loss tables are no longer error checked when the tables are disabled. Also, the Pressure Dependent Fluid Loss table was incorrectly identifying itself as the “Time Dependent Fluid Loss” table in error messages. (#2217)

• [Fix] The zone selections on the Multilayer tab were not being loaded correctly on File | Open. (#2192)

• [Fix] Wellbore Fluid Friction Multiplier (surface schedule) and Flush Fluid Friction Multiplier (bottomhole schedule) were missing from the report. (#2085)

MPwri

• [Enhancement] Meyer 2009 greatly expands MPwri’s ability to model internal and external filter cakes.

  Previous releases of MPwri modeled the injectivity decline in water injection wells using a “filtration” damage model. This model assumed the initial development of an internal skin (or cake) as the result of particulate deposition inside the formation, with permeability decreasing as the concentration of deposited particulates increased. After some period of time (known as the “transition time”), the internal cake would reach a critical porosity, causing future deposits to form an external cake.

  In Meyer 2009, MPwri still supports this classic “filtration” damage model (FDM). However, we have added an alternate “displacement” damage model (DDM), which postulates a different cake formation mechanism where internal and external cake can build at the same time (i.e., there is no “transition” between the two modes of cake building). This model predicts the leading edge of the internal damage front based on a saturation distribution throughout the internal damage zone.

  To support this new flexibility we have moved many of the old Cake Properties inputs to a new Damage Model Database. This database allows the user to choose any of a number of saturation and permeability equations for use with the underlying FDM or DDM.

  Meyer 2009 automatically upgrades old MPwri files to this new, more flexible system.

• [Enhancement] MPwri can now model injecting different concentrations of particulates for both the total suspended solids (TSS) and oil-in-water (OIW) in each stage, including support for Real-Time concentrations. Meyer 2008 and earlier assumed one particulate concentration for the whole job.

  Nearly a dozen new particulate transport plots have been added, including plots showing information on particulate fronts, volume distributions, skin pressure loss, and injectivity. (#2072)

• [Fix] MPwri plotted Modified Stress incorrectly if the Stress, Stress Gradient, and Height output units were set inconsistently. (#2056)

• [Fix] The “Skin & External Cake Thickness vs Time” plot was not scaling properly based on the last run. (#2123)

• [Fix] Use the correct psi ↔ Pa conversion factor to compute the filter cake resistance unit conversion factor for “psi/(cp-ft/s).” (Broken in Meyer 2008.) (r30757)

MWell

• [Enhancement] MWell now supports Perforation Erosion. (#2197)

• [Fix] Importing a multi-zone MFrac file into MWell (or MFrac-Lite) where the first zone was inactive led to problems in the report. (MWell and MFrac-Lite only support a single zone, which must be active.) (#2161)

• [Fix] Minimum Stress was missing on the report when the Fracture Pressure Table was set to “ignore table.” (#2221)

• [Fix] MWell could report that the “number of multiple parallel fractures is not within bounds” when error checking on the Zones screen. This variable does not exist in MWell. (#2058)

• [Fix] MWell now error checks the Zone Data tab when closing the Zones screen. (#2224)

• [Fix] The Fracture Pressure Table (under Zones) now defaults to “ignore table” on File | New. (#2079)

MinFrac

• [Enhancement] Added an Edit Line Slopes command to enter line slopes manually, rather than only being able to adjust them graphically. (#2117)

• [Enhancement] Added two more slope lines to the Regression plots. (#2112, #2140)

• [Enhancement] Drag Lines now allows dragging a slope line by clicking and dragging anywhere along the line. Meyer 2008 and earlier required clicking specifically on one of the line’s points. (#2211)

• [Enhancement] MinFrac now supports plotting more than one right axis derivative curve (simultaneously) on Regression plots. (#2120, #2129)

• [Enhancement] Placing a point on top of another point now shows both points. Prior to Meyer 2009 only the point on “top” was visible, which made it difficult to locate the “bottom” point’s marker to drag it out of the way. (#2116)

• [Enhancement] The MinFrac Select Analyses screen now uses a spreadsheet for easier reading. (#1534)

• [Fix] Changes to the Default Plot Attributes weren’t always applied immediately—it was sometimes necessary to switch pages for the changes to take effect. (#2209)

• [Fix] Dragging a slope line on a plot could cause the slope value to change by a small amount. (#2208)

• [Fix] Ensure that the user-specified Time of Closure is less than the Stop Time before displaying the After Closure plots. (#2173)

• [Fix] Fixed a crash in Output | View Report when some previously valid time scales become invalid (i.e., when they are missing data). (#2093)

• [Fix] Fixed data corruption, and possible crash, when saving crash recovery checkpoints. (r29639)

• [Fix] Modified numerical calculation of derivatives for oscillating pressures to obtain a better general curve fit of the data. This improves the results when the data range contains large pressure changes in the water hammer region. (#2078)

• [Fix] Nolte G Time Regression plots did not work properly with input time units set to days or years. (#2132)

• [Fix] Plots on pages in the Regression Wizard are now configurable individually. Previously a change to any one page also affected the other pages. (#2111)

• [Fix] Plots with multiple right axes now allow the user to left click the YR: mouse coordinates in order to choose an axis to display. Also, the “Use right mouse button to select points” option no longer interferes with right clicking on the YR: mouse coordinates. (#2146)

• [Fix] Re-added crash recovery checkpoints (e.g., after Options) that were mistakenly removed in Meyer 2008. (#2090)

• [Fix] Selecting “Each curve has its own axis” in MinFrac Plot Configuration, then closing and reopening the Plot Configuration screen, caused two radio buttons to be selected at once: “Each curve has its own axis” and “All curves are drawn on one axis.” (#2128)

• [Fix] Text blocks in MinFrac analysis plots (e.g., Regression Analysis) were deleted upon closing the plot. (#2097)

• [Fix] The computation for checking mouse position relative to the on-screen point markers made it too difficult to drag points on tall plots, and too easy to drag points on wide plots. (#2214)

• [Fix] The Information Box on the Real-Time Horner plot did not update properly when changing the base data or the units. (#2133)

• [Fix] The ISIP could not be moved when zoomed in on a Regression plot with “Volume and Rate” or “Time and Rate” selected on Data | Options | Graphical under “User Specified Pumping Data.” (#2071)

• [Fix] The Min/Max Range Bar now always stays within the visible area of the plot. (#2068)

• [Fix] The Nolte FL² plot, added in Meyer 2008, did not work properly. Most of the time, this plot would corrupt memory and crash. (#2143)

• [Fix] The pore pressure gradient was calculated incorrectly for the bottomhole Horner analysis. Also, the stress gradient was missing from the bottomhole Regression plot. (#1927, #2119)

• [Fix] The Select Previous Point (F7) and Select Next Point (F8) menu commands were not properly disabled when the slope lines were hidden. (#2115)

MNpv

• [Enhancement] MNpv now uses the currency symbol set in the Windows Control Panel as its default currency symbol, rather than hard-coding “US Dollar” and “$.” (r30340)

MProd

• [Fix] Fixed error checking on the NPV/Multi-Case Fracture Characteristics screen when switching from “Calculate Perm” to “Calculate Width” with values out-of-bounds in the “Fracture Perm” column. (#2083)

• [Fix] History Match cases with no fracture did not account for well skin in the pseudo-steady state solution. The symptom: rate would drop instantly (i.e., discontinuously) upon reaching pseudo-steady state. (#2153)

• [Fix] Meyer 2008 MProd was unable to read some very old (circa 1995) MFrac files that Meyer 2006 and earlier had no trouble reading. (#2091)

• [Fix] The Reservoir Pore Volume and Initial Gas In Place, and the Gas PVT table, were missing on the NPV/Multi-Case report. (#2147)

MView

• [Enhancement] Added Wellbore Hydraulics channels Y (“BHTP calc. from Surface”) and Z (“Surface Pressure calc. from BHTP”) to the MView “import MFrac output data” feature. (#2205)

• [Enhancement] Enhancements to Recover Real-Time Data: (#2130)

  1. The Recover Real-Time Data menu command is now always enabled, even if the first data set is set to Replay. This fixes some chicken-and-egg filtering scenarios that were difficult to work around in previous versions of the Meyer Software.

  2. Added a menu command to Clear Real-Time Data. Previously this command was only available by overwriting the output file in Meyer Data Acquisition.

  3. Added a progress bar.

  4. Suppress beeping when filtering out Real-Time data during recovery.

  5. The Real-Time Data Sets | Setup screen now features Recover Real-Time Data and Clear Real-Time Data buttons.

• [Enhancement] MView no longer attempts to guess when to open Simulation Setup (e.g., after exiting Data Sets | Setup). The user is now responsible for running Simulation Setup as needed. (#2220)

• [Enhancement] MView now features a status bar which displays the number of Real-Time data lines received, translated (i.e., successfully interpreted according to Data Sets | Setup), and filtered out. (#2163)

• [Enhancement] New MView option: “Filter lines with invalid column selections.” With this option off, MView will treat columns selected in Data Sets | Setup, but missing in the Replay/Real-Time data, as containing “0.” Previous behavior was to filter lines with missing columns. (#1496)

• [Fix] Canceling while setting up a new data set could lose the previous settings. (#2131)

• [Fix] Closing Data Sets | Setup in Replay mode no longer closes the Real-Time Data window. (#2199)

• [Fix] Delete key now behaves as expected in the Build Plot Parameters table. (#2212)

• [Fix] Filtering on Real-Time data was broken (for non-default units) since Meyer 2003 SE (excluding clock time columns, which were broken for Replay filters, but worked in Real-Time mode). (#2107)

• [Fix] Fixed a crash in the MView Real-Time | Add Log Entry command with over 102 channels of Real-Time data defined in Data Sets | Setup. (#2096)

• [Fix] Fixed data corruption when using the Edit Data command to edit the Real-Time data set. (#2092)

• [Fix] International decimal support now works correctly in Merge Data Sets. In Meyer 2003 through Meyer 2008, Merge Data Sets only supported international decimals with the decimal point set to the ‘.’ or ‘,’ character. (#2104)

• [Fix] MView could lose Real-Time data when Meyer Data Acquisition was set to “ASCII Data from a File” mode. (The symptom was blank lines appearing in the MView Real-Time Data window, that were not present in the MACQ Real-Time Data window.) (#2101)

• [Fix] MView no longer displays the message “a change in the Real-Time setup or the MFrac Simulation setup has made it impossible to communicate with MFrac” when no apps that can use the Real-Time data are actually open. (r29871)

• [Fix] Recover Real-Time Data no longer replaces blank lines with duplicates of the previous line. (#2108)

• [Fix] “Text to be inserted into a merged data file when a number cannot be interpolated” (in Merge Data Sets) allowed entering one more character than MView could actually write to the file. (r29783)

• [Fix] The MView parser did not handle files with under four lines of data very well. This bug also prevented setting the “sample every n rows” setting in the MView preview plot to more than half the distance between the start and stop rows. (#2142)

• [Fix] The number of scale markers and gridlines on plots could increase without bound, making the scales illegible, with repeated auto-scaling of the Y axis. In some cases this manifested as a 100% CPU lockup.

  This bug was especially easy to reproduce by zooming in and showing the derivative in Graphical Edit. (#2234)

• [Fix] The Real-Time Data Window now works correctly with plot templates. Previously (for example), a template saved with the Digital Display view would show the Raw Data view after File | New. (#2200)

  To apply this bug fix to an existing template: load the template in Meyer 2009, select the desired Real-Time Data Window, and then save the template.

• [Fix] When changing the shift value for the X axis data in MView’s Graphical Edit, some curves on the YR axis would not appear to change until the plot was closed and then reopened. (#2064)

• [Fix] When filtering thousands of lines very quickly with the “Beep when filtering Real-Time data that is out of range” option enabled, MView could cause a 100% CPU usage spike and/or continue beeping long after the data finished processing. (#2017)

• [Fix] When starting MView after MACQ had already sent Real-Time data, MView didn't read the existing Real-Time data until MACQ sent another line. If the user didn't start MView until after MACQ finished acquiring data, this made the Real-Time data appear to be “missing” in MView. (#2141)

Meyer Data Acquisition

New Features & Enhancements

Unicode:

• [Enhancement] MACQ now auto-detects input file encoding, and handles both Unicode and pre-Unicode text file input correctly.

• [Enhancement] MACQ now auto-detects output file encoding, and matches any existing encoding. It also detects and matches line ending style (e.g., CRLF versus LF line endings), and appends correctly to text files without a final EOL.

• [Enhancement] Direct Connect & Modem now have an “International Text Encoding” option, which defaults to Unicode.

• [Enhancement] MACQ now prompts for an international text encoding when upgrading pre-Meyer 2009 .stp (MACQ Setup) files with international text.

• [Enhancement] MACQ now handles lines with embedded NUL and CR bytes in a consistent, Unicode-compliant way. Previously we filtered these bytes out and/or behaved inconsistently after receiving them.

Renamed user interface elements that used to refer to “ASCII” (which is no longer correct since we now support Unicode):

• “ASCII Data from the Serial Port” → “Receive text from the serial port.”

• “ASCII Data from a File” → “Periodically check a text file for data.”

• “TEST MODE - Send ASCII file instead of Real-Time data” → “Test Mode: Send a text file instead of Real-Time data, then stop.”

Direct Connect & Modem:

• [Enhancement] New feature: Manual dialing. This allows MACQ to work over an intercom, and also fixes a bug in Manual Answer + Auto Redial mode.

• [Enhancement] The “Answer?” prompt has been replaced with an “Answer” button. (This doubles as an “Answering” button for Auto Answer mode, and a “Hanging Up” button for surprise hangups.)

• [Enhancement] Flow control now defaults to Hardware, not None.

Setup:

• [Enhancement] Disable the OK button when the COM port number is out of range, and/or when the text file/test mode polling interval is out of range (e.g., negative). Also, repair old .stp (MACQ setup) files with invalid COM port numbers and polling intervals.

• [Enhancement] Simplified the default modem initialization string. MACQ now handles its required modem settings internally, rather than requiring them to be entered as part of the modem initialization string. Also, added a Default button to reset the modem initialization string to its default value.

• [Enhancement] The “Add this computer’s time to the start of each data line” check box now stays enabled even with the input port running.

• [Enhancement] The Input and Output Port areas on “Acquisition Setup” now show the selected flow control option.

• [Fix] The Input Port area on “Acquisition Setup” did not show filenames containing the ‘&’ character properly. (The filename display on the main Meyer Data Acquisition screen had the same problem.)

• [Fix] The serial port no longer switches back from “Modem” to “Direct Connect” when disabling the output port or when setting the input port to text file/test mode.

Dial & Phone Book Screens:

• [Enhancement] Greatly improved keyboard access to these screens.

• [Enhancement] The Dial and Phone Book screens now remember the last selected Phone Book entry.

• [Enhancement] Additional Dial error messages (depending on the brand of modem): “No Answer,” “No Dial Tone.”

• [Fix] The Dial screen now has a horizontal scrollbar when necessary, just like the Phone Book screen.

• [Fix] The Phone Book screen now handles blank entries and entries containing commas properly, and no longer allows duplicate entries.

Other:

• [Enhancement] Improved error messages for input/output file already in use, port already in use, and no such port.

• [Enhancement] MACQ now officially supports changing the output file while the input port is running. Meyer 2008 and earlier always allowed this, but the feature was untested and not guaranteed to work.

• [Enhancement] Text file mode is now noticeably more responsive.

Bug Fixes

Input Port:

• [Fix] MACQ could lose data when reading from a file in “ASCII Data from a File” mode, when the process writing the file was writing very quickly. (#2118)

• [Fix] MACQ no longer crashes or becomes unresponsive when receiving data with no line endings.

• [Fix] MACQ now truncates overly long lines, rather than splitting them into multiple lines. Splitting these lines invariably produced corrupt lines that required filtering by MView.

Output Port:

• [Fix] Output Port stopped transmitting data after overwriting an output file (since Meyer 2003 SE). (#2113)

• [Fix] Serial Port flow control was broken since Meyer 2003: MACQ would throw away any data it couldn't transmit in ½ second. The symptom was a single very long line of data with no line endings (which appeared to a remote MACQ as “no data”) appearing on the output port when running at very slow port speeds. (#2114)

• [Fix] The output port no longer requires an output file to “Start” the port. Also, “Start” on the output port before browsing to an output file no longer gives “error opening output file.”

Direct Connect & Modem:

• [Fix] The “Answer?” prompt no longer comes up when the user interface is otherwise busy—for example, the prompt can no longer appear when Acquisition Setup is open.

• [Fix] Multiple popups could appear at the same time on computers with multiple modems.

• [Fix] MACQ now closes the serial port before displaying error messages, so the modem now hangs up if (e.g.) the port initialization failed.

• [Fix] MACQ now explicitly disables Auto Answer on the modem when this feature is not enabled in Setup. This prevents problems when another application quits but leaves Auto Answer enabled on the modem.

• [Fix] Auto Answer mode now hangs up the phone if it doesn’t successfully connect within 60 seconds. (The Manual Answer screen features the same timeout.) Previously once Auto Answer failed, the user had to stop and restart the port to get the modem working again.

• [Fix] The Cancel button on the Answer and Dial screens now works if selected after two modems negotiate line speed and connect, but before the operating system informs MACQ that the modems have connected.

• [Fix] Fix occasional problems with corrupt input, random unrepeatable user interface glitches, and 100% CPU spikes.

Other:

• [Fix] Clarified error message when overwriting a read-only output file on Windows 2000 and XP. (Example: copying and pasting a sample file from the Meyer CD to the Desktop, and then attempting to overwrite the file.) (#1977)

• [Fix] If only the output port is running when the user closes MACQ, the prompt now reads “Are you sure you want to stop sending output data?,” not “Are you sure you want to stop acquiring data?”

• [Fix] MView could receive redundant copies of the Real-Time data (leading to X axis data going backwards, etc.) if MACQ were reset while MView was closed. (#2106)

• [Fix] The Append/Overwrite prompt will no longer prompt to overwrite an output file that contains “0 lines.”

Obsolete Features Removed

• “Stewart & Stevenson” data acquisition format is no longer supported.