Digital imaging and computation revolutionised photography by making film cameras obsolete and moving image processing from chemical darkrooms into computers. Ingrain, a Houston-based technology start-up, is using digital imaging and computation to reinvent special core analysis. At Ingrain's digital rock physics lab, latest-generation CT (computed tomography) scanners capture in 3D the actual fabric of reservoir rock samples; the pore-space and mineral matrix geometry fabric at resolutions as high as 100 nanometers.