Version 1.7.2.0 has many additions and could be unstable until the new functions are fully tested, and some of the existing functions could be affected due to the many code changes required. The most noticeable additions are support for drill hole surveys, new clipping options, slope reconciliation support, cumulative frequency plots, volume calculations, and automatically adding coordinates to a grid by picking in the scene. Thanks this time to KD, RT, CG, HA, GL, EH, KdP, JS, MB, GB, JD, AM, TP and JW.
New functionality
Use "Ribbon => Drillhole => Survey lines => Create survey" to create and display survey lines from collars and survey angles. See discussion below.
Activate "BodRecon.exe" with "Ribbon => External => BodRecon". BodRecon automatically creates charts, meshes and Marker-files from reconciliations done in GEM4D. Contact me if you want to know more.
"Complex actions => Clipping => Show plane" previously generated a static plane where the would occur, but now show a slicing widget that can be manipulated in the scene. Bring it up and pull on the sides, surface and arrow tail to figure out how it works. You will probably find it highly useful and a lot of fun. See discussion below.
Double click in the scene to fix the camera distance and press "Alt" on the keyboard. This will create a visual clip of the scene, move the mouse up and down whilst keeping "Alt" depressed to swoop through the scene. The normal "Complex actions => Clipping => Clip size" and "Complex actions => Clipping => Step size" still controls the clipping width and the clipping speed.
Cumulative frequency plots are added to the histograms, and additional stats are shown in the Comments textbox.
The Marker and Mapping grids can now be directly populated with coordinates by picking in the scene. Right click in the grid, select "Pick coords from scene", keep "Shift" pressed and pick the scene. The pick coordinates will automatically be added to the grid in following rows. Using this in conjunction with right clicking and "Add blank grid rows" and "Add blank grid columns" makes adding data to a grid very quick. Also, see the change with grid behavior under "Changes" below.
Use "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Volume from two closed meshes" to calculate the volumes from two meshes with the associated over- and under-break. The meshes do not have to be mathematically closed, as the method estimates volumes by creating a grid of blocks and then classifying where the points. See discussion below.
The in-grid and manual (scene) filters for Markers and Mapping can now be separately reset. Reset the filters from mouse selections (manual filters) with "Ribbon => Marker/Mapping => Filters => Reset manual". Reset the in-grid filters the similar to resetting filters in Excel from the drop-downs in the column headings. Reset all filters by right cliking in the grid and select "Unhide all rows".
A new option was added to save line measure information "Top toolbar => Yellow ruler icon => Save lines as CSV-file". This was done as line-type data support becomes possible with the support for drill holes that is in working.
When created new DXF-files with the "Top toolbar => Toolbox icon" functions, the option is now given to save as Binary or Ascii DXF-files. GEM4D can read and write both, but some mine design packages can only read the Ascii-files. I use Binary for any files used in GEM4D, and Ascii if the file is going to be used in other mine design packages.
I added a requested custom text export function "Ribbon => File => Export => Other => Poly custom export 1".
Changes
The Marker/Mapping grid behaviour was changed for easier changes to the grid values. Previously, values could be changed but required a double click that did not always work well. A single left mouse click now allows changes to the cells, which works really well with the ability to add rows and columns and the ability to automaticlly add pick coordinates to the grid.
New columns are now added as strings for greater flexibility. Previously, only numbers could be added, but strings would automaticlly be converted to numbers when loaded.
When coloring the meshes, dark colours are used above and below selected minimum and maximum range. The blue side of the range will thus go to dark blue, and the red side to dark red.
The "Marker => Marker type => Shape size" value was limited to 20, now 1000.
When saving measure lines with "Top toolbar => Yellow ruler icon => Save as DXF-file", addition information is saved to the DXF layer (now length, dip and azimuth).
The number of maximum Marker/Mapping objects before automatically reverting to vertices was changed from 5000 to 20 000 for the 64-bit version.
Bug fixes
When selecting vertices when "Top toolbar => Blue 'i' icon" mode was toggled to ON did not reset the tabs - fixed.
"Top toolbar => Blue 'i' icon"did not work on mapping data - fixed.
Bugs during clipping selection - fixed.
Fix occasional errors when colouring meshes with "Top toolbar => Brown toolbox icon => Colour on distance from mesh" - fixed.
When colouring mapping data on column values, all the column could not always be selected - fixed.
The pop-up message when selecting "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Create Gaussian Splatter surface" was incorrect - fixed.
Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Volume from two closed meshes
Calculating over- and under-break for specific stope walls can be very time consuming. Most mine design software requires a "closed" surface, which is typically time consuming to achieve. The method used in GEM4D do not require mathematically "closed" meshes, but estimate the volumes by creating a grid of points and classifying each point relative to each mesh.
The process to follow is simple:
Load the stope design file first and the stope CMS second with "Ribbon => File => Load/Add DXF => Load file" or drag-and-drop the DXF-file from Windows Explorer. This is not a requirement for the function to work correctly, but the assumption for explaining the logic.
Hide or delete any other objects in the scene, otherwise an error message will be displayed when the function is activated.
Activate the function with "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Volumes from two closed meshes".
Select a block size, but take into account that halving the block size will result in an 8x larger problem to solve. For example, a 2m block has a volume of2m x 2m x 2m = 8 cubic meter. Moving to a 1m block thus requires 8 blocks to fill the same volume of 1 x 2m block.
The function will run, and could take a few minutes if the blocks are small in relation to the volume measured. Two file names have to be provided after completion, one for the DXF-file that will be created of the results, and another for a CSV-file that could be opened as Markers afterwards.
A new DXF-file with three objects will be created that provide all the required information (design stope volume, CMS stope volume, stope over-break and stope under-break):
Points inside Mesh1 only (red), also the "under-break".
Points inside Mesh2 only (green), also the "over-break".
Points inside both Mesh1 and Mesh2 (blue), let's call it "combined".
The volume for the design mesh is the combined volume of the "under-break" + "combined".
The volume for the CMS mesh is the combined volume of the "over-break" + "combined".
To work out the volumes for individual stope walls, use the CSV-file that was saved and the following procedure:
Delete the DXF-file with the volume outputs shown as coloured points by right clicking on the file name and select "Remove selected files" from the context menu.
Load the CSV-file with "Ribbon => Marker => Add => Text", and the full block of points that were evaluated will be loaded. The data has the following columns:
"Easting" - easting of each grid point.
"Northing"- northing of each grid point.
"0_Elevation"- elevation of each grid point.
"1_Mesh_No"- mesh classification number of each grid point.
"2_Volume"- volume represented by each grid point.
Filter for example to over-break by clicking the down-arrow on column header of "1_Mesh_No" (the column down-arrows become visible when the mouse cursor moves over the column headers). Untick "0", "1" and "3" and press "Apply". This works similar to Excel.
The points that was only inside Mesh2 (CMS) is now displayed, which is also the over-break. The number of visible points in the grid are shown in the Statusbar at the bottom of the form as "Marker items: XXX". As each point represents a know volume, just multiple the number of points with the block volume to get the over-break.
It is now easy to filter the Marker points to only get the points for each wall with "Ribbon => Marker => Filters => Manual => Remove inside/outside selection". To select the point pixel perfect, change the camera view to parallel view (as the default perspective view has a vanishing point) by checking "Ribbon => Settings => Camera => Parallel view".
Complex actions => Clipping => Show plane
The clipping plane widget can be moved with the mouse by grabbing the edge, plane, or red edge. Each has a subtle different behaviour and look, play around and figure it out. Grab the tail of the arrow and rotate the widget to any orientation before a clipping is made.
Ribbon => Drillhole => Survey lines => Create survey
Load Collar files with “Ribbon => Drillhole => Collars => Load (CSV)”, the required format is: DHid, Easting, Northing, Elevation, MaxDepth.
Build a survey strings file with “Ribbon => Drillhole => Survey lines => Create survey”, the require format of the survey file is: DHid, Depth, Azimuth, Dip. This requires a loaded collar file.
TA Survey Lines file will be create with format: DHid, Easting1, Northing1, Elevation1, Easting2, Northing2, Elevation2, From, To, Azimuth, Dip.
The survey collars and lines can be picked when Information Mode "Top toolbar => Blue 'i' button" is toggled to ON, and will link back to the appropriate grid.
