Octree compression techniques have been used for several years for compressing large three dimensional
data sets into homogeneous regions. This compression technique is ideally suited to datasets
which have similar values in clusters. Oil engineers represent reservoirs as a three dimensional grid
where hydrocarbons occur naturally in clusters. This research looks at the efficiency of storing these
grids using octree compression techniques where grid cells are broken into active and inactive regions.
Initial experiments yielded high compression ratios as only active leaf nodes and their ancestor, header
nodes are stored as a bitstream to file on disk. Savings in computational time and memory were possible
at decompression, as only active leaf nodes are sent to the graphics card eliminating the need of
reconstructing the original matrix. This results in a more compact vertex table, which can be loaded
into the graphics card quicker and generating shorter refresh delay times