drilling · directional
Directional Wellpath Profile
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Inputs
ft
ft
ft
Paste one row per line — separate columns with a comma or tab: Measured Depth (ft), Inclination (°), Azimuth (°)
⚠ Needs at least 3 valid rows to calculate — 0 so far.
Description
Builds a full multi-station wellbore trajectory by chaining the minimum curvature method (the same pairwise formula as Minimum Curvature Survey Calculation) across an ordered array of MD/Inclination/Azimuth survey stations, accumulating TVD, Northing, and Easting station-by-station from a starting reference position. This is the multi-station counterpart to min_curvature_survey — that calc computes one station-pair's position increment; this calc runs it down an entire survey and reports the resulting final position, total closure, and the worst dogleg severity found anywhere along the trajectory, plus a connected vertical-section plot of the full path.
Variables
| Symbol | Unit | Description |
|---|---|---|
| TVD | ft | Final TVD |
| C | ft | Total Closure Distance |
| DLSmax | °/100ft | Maximum Dogleg Severity |
| TVD₀ | ft | True vertical depth at the first survey station (row 1 of the stations table) — the starting reference the trajectory is built from, typically 0 at the surface/RKB or a known casing-point TVD if continuing an existing survey. |
| N₀ | ft | Northing at the first survey station — 0 if the surface location itself is the coordinate origin. |
| E₀ | ft | Easting at the first survey station — 0 if the surface location itself is the coordinate origin. |
| MD, I, A | — | One row per survey station, top to bottom, in increasing MD order starting at the reference station (row 1, paired with TVD₀/N₀/E₀ above). Each station pair's position increment is computed independently via the minimum curvature method (same formula as Minimum Curvature Survey Calculation); only the running TVD/N/E total, not any pair's own math, carries state from one row to the next — the same prefix-sum shape as Geophysics' N-Layer Depth Conversion. Paste at least 3 stations. |
Assumptions
- Survey stations are listed in strictly increasing MD order starting from the reference station (TVD₀/N₀/E₀)
- The wellbore follows a smooth circular arc between each pair of adjacent stations (the minimum curvature assumption, same as min_curvature_survey)
- All azimuths share a consistent north reference (true, grid, or magnetic) and any magnetic declination/grid convergence correction has already been applied before input
Limitations
- A row that does not increase in MD from the prior row is skipped, not interpolated — fix the survey data rather than relying on this calc to reorder it
- Reports only the final position, total closure, and worst dogleg severity as scalar outputs — the full per-station path is chart-only data, not returned as a queryable output (no array-output infrastructure exists on this platform yet)
- Same positional-error accumulation caveat as min_curvature_survey: this calc does not itself compute an error ellipse — reconcile against gyro check surveys at casing points for real wells
Use Cases
- → Full wellpath visualization from a survey table: Paste an entire MWD/gyro survey and see the resulting vertical-section trajectory in one chart, instead of running min_curvature_survey one station pair at a time.
- → Whole-survey dogleg QC: Immediately spot the single worst dogleg severity interval anywhere in a multi-station survey without manually checking every adjacent pair.
- → Well-plan vertical section preview: Get a quick vertical-section preview of a planned or as-drilled trajectory before importing the full survey into dedicated well-planning software.
Related Calculations
Region Notes
Global
This calc's vertical-section chart uses a fixed horizontal-displacement axis (√(N²+E²) at each station), not a chosen vertical-section azimuth projection — use Vertical Section for the conventional projected-azimuth well-plan display.
References
Primary source
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