Defining Orebodies ©2012 Dr B. C. Paul Note – These slide contain screen shots from the program MineSight by Mintec. Credit is given to Mintec for the program. Topics covered in the slides may also be covered in Mintec training courses though no courses were explicitly copied for these slides.

This time I will do a from Scratch Project On the Splash Screen I select browse and then in my chosen directory I do a Make New Folder and Name it Demo.

It Will Ask to Set Up MineSight Resource Folders in the Directory Say Yes

Next it wants to know what area the Project Covers

My Assumed Work Area 0, ft 6000 ft Units in Feet

Putting Things In I pick units of feet and put in my area and then click OK

Now We Are Set to Go

What I’m Going to Do Assume I have a dipping Orebody. I’m going to trace The shape of thet orebody Systematically on different Levels.

The Wild Pline My first impulse is to just draw the orebody borders with closed PlinesMy first impulse is to just draw the orebody borders with closed Plines MineSight is a true 3D program.MineSight is a true 3D program. How do I know I am tracing the orebody at a fixed elevation.How do I know I am tracing the orebody at a fixed elevation. (You might find it out the hard way that lines just drawn in freespace can really be very free in space).(You might find it out the hard way that lines just drawn in freespace can really be very free in space).

Enter – The Gridset / And Friend the Edit Grid It is a planer grid that Can be set up any way In space to confine Drawings to a plane. I created a Gridset Folder And then selected to Create a New Gridset

I’m Naming My Gridset – Horizontal Planes I will then click Ok

My Gridset Control My sets will be Planer They will start at The origin – Be the size of my Project And there will be A set of 77 planes Spaced every 100 ft.

A Dense Picture of Gridsets Appears

My Strategy I will set the grid set to control the displayI will set the grid set to control the display Then I will select the level I want to draw onThen I will select the level I want to draw on Then I will move to 2D drawing confined to a planeThen I will move to 2D drawing confined to a plane I will then snap an Edit Grid onto that PlaneI will then snap an Edit Grid onto that Plane I will then set snap mode to snap what ever I draw to that planeI will then set snap mode to snap what ever I draw to that plane

The Little Green Box Is Used to Have a Gridset Control the Display Click on it.

A Directory Pops Up for You to Pick the Gridset

Select My Edit Grid and Click Ok

The Little Blue List Box Will Let Me See All the Elevations I Can Choose

There is the Plane I Want to Work With I will click on it.

Using the Viewer Controls Note that the controlling elevation Has been specified. I will now select a 2D View mode (which will put me in the 6800 elevation plane)

There is the Single Grid and We Are Now Seeing Things in Only One Plane

I Will Go to My Edit Grid Select Buttons More specifically the one that allows me to select the current plane Of my gridset to form my edit grid. Click it then click my gridset in the viewer

Setting An Edit Grid Click the Edit Grid to Make That one plane control The viewer Note that when the Gridset Is turned off I now see The edit grid.

Now Set Snap Mode to Plane Snap This will cause the lines I Draw to snap to the Current plane (which is my Edit grid at 6800 feet)

The Box Tells Me My Current Snap Mode is to a Plane

I’ll Set Up My Files to Hold My Orebody Contours I created a file called Orebody Within that file I created a “geometry object” To hold orebody contours I set the orebody contours into edit mode.

Now I Will Give the Order to Let Me Draw a Pline Note that since I know this polyline will be closed I am telling it to let Me draw the polyline as a polygon.

After I Draw My Polyline I Right Click My Mouse to Signal I Am Done The line turns red (the default for the Line is complete but has not been Saved).

I Click on MineSight’s Funky Save Icon The saved contour Line now turns Blue.

Click on the “Spill Your Guts” Icon – Then click the pline Ok – MineSight calls it the Query Button. You Can use it to check the properties of any Geometry object.

Note the Query Result Shows Every Point of the Polyline is at 6800 feet I did avert the Problem of Plines jumping Up and down To different Elevations in 3D.

After Repeated Efforts I End Up With My Contour Lines Around the Orebody at various elevations

An Alternative to Edit Grids for Fast Work Assuming I want to put a line at a fixed elevation in a horizontal plane. First get into a horizontal plane – click the horizontal plane icon.

Now Go For the Viewer Properties Icon The Set Camera Target TrickThe Set Camera Target Trick Click on the Viewer Properties Icon

Select the Camera Tab in the Viewer Properties Window Set the elevation of the camera target to the elevation you want to work with. (I’m going to set 2900). Then click apply.

Now I Will Draw a Polygon

I’ll Put in a Twisted Line Sure to Create Elevation Confusion.

But Wait! With the Camera Target Trick Everything Goes in at a Fixed Elevation. (The fixed elevation is the one you set with the camera target)

Back to My Main Story - Defining an Orebody I previously triangulated between contour lines of elevation and created a surfaceI previously triangulated between contour lines of elevation and created a surface I can similarly link these contours to form a shell around my orebodyI can similarly link these contours to form a shell around my orebody I will use the “Linker Tool”I will use the “Linker Tool”

Of Course I Will Set Up My Geometry Object in Edit Mode for My Drawing

The Linker Tool is Accessed Via the Icon with Links in a Chain

Once Accessed A Menu Pops Up

The Links Button Indicates How the Lines to Link are Selected You can select links one At a time You can drag a box around a bunch of Lines to link all at once

Of Course the Box Drag will Get Things Put Together Faster But Wait! – We may want to consider a bit about how this thing works

Linker Connects node points in the order and direction of creation 1 1

But What Happens If You Did the Plines in Opposite Directions? Oouch! – It crosses itself like a Mutant bowtie.

We Cure This By Checking Line Direction To do this we start by Selecting the line we want To review.

Click on the Target Line It turns orange Right Click Your Mouse to complete The selection.

Now It Turns Red – It is Selected and Ready for Study and Modification

Using Menus go for Polyline / Redefine / Direction

Here is My Buzzard! – It was digitized counter-clockwise. Note the arrows point To the order in which Points of the line were Digitized.

First Click Reselect Then click the line Then right click to Complete the reselection Now click apply to reverse the direction Of the line. (note – don’t forget to Right click to Complete the selection – Otherwise the apply And preview buttons will Be grayed out because MineSight is waiting for You to finish your Reselection)

Positively Butimouse – Now its Digitized Clockwise.

Now If I Use the Linker I Get Something Realistic

What Happens if the Starting Points for the Polylines Don’t Line Up? Wow – Its Twisted Man!!

What To Do About This Problem This time I will select a Set of lines to check Out.

I’m Going to Redefine the Endpoints

I Can See My Rotten Apple Point that is Out of Place Note where the other Endpoints are.

Simply Mouse Click Where I Want the Endpoint to Be

While I Have All Those Lines Selected I’m Going to Check Direction

Oh No – We Have One Line Going the Wrong Direction!

Now For the Mystery of the Reselect Didn’t it seem Annoying that we Picked a line, Checked it, and Then had to pick It again to change It?

Oh – But There is a Reason! We have just been checking Out a bunch of lines all at Once. Now we find we have One line going the wrong Direction. We can now pick only one Line out of the set to Change. Click reselect and then Click the offending line.

We Can Fix Just One Line in a Set. It lets us work with a bunch of Objects at once. And then Just pick one to adjust. It is a Key stroke saver for big Projects. What we did 1- Hit reselect 2- Click the line 3- Right Click the mouse to Complete the selection 4- Click the Apply Button.

Lets Save Our Changes Click Save. Sometimes you want to do Something and all your Needed menus seem to be Grayed out. Look to see if The save box is lit up! If it is, Try clicking to save. (Minesight sometimes won’t Let you move on till you save Your work).

Now We Can Link Some Stuff Together.

What Happens if One Line Has a Lot of Points and Another Only a Few? It will try to ratio points an link the few to Multiple points – sometimes its Ok, but it can also create some ugly twists locally

Oh Ya – There is an Ugly Twist

We Can Densify the Points on a Line Note that I previously Selected this Polyline as the one I wanted to work with. (If I had note made A selection the Densify option would Be grayed out on the Menu).

After Doing the Reselect Thing I Can Specify My Point Interval And then apply

Uniformly Dense Lines Starting in the Same Area and Running in the Same Direction Often Produce Good Results

Interesting Fact Our orebody shell is still made Of pieces found between Individual contour lines We can merge all those pieces Into one orebody shell.

Select All the Pieces that We Want to Merge 1- On the Selection Menu I chose to make A new selection. 2- Then I clicked on Each piece of the Orebody shell 3- Then I right clicked My mouse and Everything turned red As in this picture.

Next I Will Merge My Selected Elements

After That If I Click to Select My Orebody Shell I Get the Whole Thing

Sometimes Part of an Orebody is Eroded Away Sometimes we just want to define how an orebody intersects the surface

I Will Prepare a New Open Edit Geometry Object for My Result Since I’m going to clip the orebody at the surface I chose to call it Clipped Orebody

I Will Use the Intersect Surfaces Tool

The Dialog Box Wants Me to Identify the Surfaces I Will Use The blue worm means I will Select the surface in the viewer The red dot box means I will Pick an entire geometry Object with the Data Manager.

I Click the Blue Worm for My Primary Surface Then I click my topographic surface When I right click the mouse the selection completes And is entered in the dialog box. (and also surrounded By a blue box).

I Use the Same Method to Select the Orebody Shell as My Secondary Surface

I Set What I Want to Do In the Dialog Box The secondary surface will be affected I want the portion below the Primary Surface I Do a Preview to make sure I got what I really Wanted.

When I Click Apply It Asks Me Where I Want to Send The Result I will of course choose the open edit object I prepared for That purpose and then click OK

Looking At My Clipped Orebody I See I Got What I Wanted.

A Nice Little Display Trick On my toposurface I right click in the Data Manager to Drop down a Menu From the menu I select Properties I Click the Surfaces Tab

I Will Check for Transparent Faces As I set the percentage (using the arrow) I can see the result. When I’m happy I click Ok

Now For Your Adventure Assignment #3Assignment #3 Get the starter contour lines file from the instructorGet the starter contour lines file from the instructor Use the linker tool to link the contour lines around the orebody to make an orebody shellUse the linker tool to link the contour lines around the orebody to make an orebody shell Take a screen shot of your resultTake a screen shot of your result Use the Surface Merge Tool and Make the Orebody shell into a single objectUse the Surface Merge Tool and Make the Orebody shell into a single object Set it to show only the facesSet it to show only the faces Take a screen shotTake a screen shot

Assignment #3 Continued Turn on the topo surfaceTurn on the topo surface Create a new geometry object for the clipped orebodyCreate a new geometry object for the clipped orebody Using the Intersect Surfaces Tool clip the orebody at the topo surfaceUsing the Intersect Surfaces Tool clip the orebody at the topo surface Take a screen shotTake a screen shot Adjust the trasparancy of the topo surface so I can see the orebodyAdjust the trasparancy of the topo surface so I can see the orebody Pick a good view and take a screen shot.Pick a good view and take a screen shot.