Abstract In this study, our aim is to show that new measuring and visualization techniques can have large implications for the future application of outcrop data. First, we review different techniques that can be used to collect digital outcrop data. We especially focus on outcrop capture methods such as photorealistic, 3-D digital outcrop models. These models can be rendered with stunning verisimilitude even on laptop computers. We show some of the applications of photorealistic outcrop models, focusing on how the models can be used directly in a virtual reality (VR) environment to produce sophisticated reservoir models with high accuracy. Finally, we show how the captured digital rocks can be visualized synchronously with the modeled ones. The benefits of visualizing the real world and the model at the same time and in an immersive visualization environment are significant, particularly as a platform for multidisciplinary discussions. A part of this study is based on the Eocene Ainsa Turbidite System in the Spanish Pyrenees. More details of this turbidite system are provided in this Atlas in other papers. The outcrops are located along two flanks of a syncline (the Buil Syncline), and are basically two-dimensional. Therefore, one is forced to make a number of conceptual interpretations on the location and nature of the turbidite system in the subcrop between these two flanks. Other workers have contrasting views on this turbidite system. The aim here is not to claim a perfect model of the studied outcrops (which is impossible due to their nature), but to