Reference objects for block models

Block models can be viewed alongside the other geoscience objects in your workspace, via the Geoscience Object Service.

When a block model is created, a matching "reference object" is automatically created in the Geoscience Object Service, of type blocksync-reference. This object contains the metadata of the block model - including its name, description, and column definitions. The created block model's metadata includes the property geoscience_object_id, indicating the linked geoscience object. The reference object contains the equivalent blocksync_uuid, indicating the bm_uuid of the block model.

Names and paths

The reference object will be given the same name as the block model, with a .json extension. Optionally, a folder path can be provided in the block model create request, using the property object_path; if this is not provided, the reference object will be created in the root of the workspace.

Geoscience objects must have unique names within each folder. If a geoscience object already exists with the requested name for the block model in the requested folder (or root if object_path is not used), an error will be returned with HTTP code 409 and type geoscience-object-path-conflict.

Changes and versioning

Whenever changes are made to the block model, the reference object is automatically kept in sync. This includes:

• Updating the block model's metadata
• Publishing a new version of the block model, whether a change of column metadata or an update to the model data
• Deleting or restoring a block model. This will automatically delete and restore the reference object.

Changes that affect the content of the reference object (metadata updates and publishes) result in a new version of the reference object being created. Note that, as block model metadata updates do not publish a new block model version, versions in BMS and in the Geoscience Object Service will not usually be one-to-one. Versions in the reference object and block model version records are linked as follows:

• The reference object's property blocksync_version indicates the latest block model version's version_uuid at that point.
• The block model version's property geoscience_version_id indicates the version_id for the corresponding reference object version.

Restoring and name collisions

When restoring a block model, the linked reference object will be automatically restored. If a name collision happens either in the Block Model Service (BMS) or in the Geoscience Object Service, the block model will be renamed using a similar convention used when a new file name in Windows already exists in a folder, using a number postfix in brackets.

As BMS ensures unique block model names throughout a workspace, and the Geoscience Object Service ensures unique names for all objects in a folder, collisions can occur in different ways. For example, a deleted block model named "My model" might be restored as "My model (1)" if another block model uses the "My model" name; or if there is another geoscience object (of a different type) in the same folder with that name. The system will automatically resolve this by using the lowest postfix number that gives a non-colliding name in both services.

Coordinate reference systems

The block model property coordinate_reference_system is used with the block model's origin, rotations, and dimensions to calculate the bounding box for the block model's reference object, allowing the block model to appear in spatial search results.