Version 1.7.5.5 contains many functionality additions and significant enhancements to existing functionality. Please download the latest version, as there was an early Version 1.7.5.5 upload that contained errors. Many thanks this time to a bunch of contributions from AB, BB, TN, RT, AP, KdP, WG, CB, NT, SF, AJ, MD, GB, KA, ZT, JG, JP, JM, LH, JD and DJ.
New functionality
Drag-and-drop from Windows Explorer is now supported for all mesh formats - (AutoCAD) DXF, DWG, (Surpac) STR, DTM, (Others) OBJ, IV, VRM, STL, PLY, VTK and VTP. Native Datamine DM-support will be added soon.
Drag-and-drop is now supported for Marker CSV text-files.
Expand Surpac file support to include multiple objects in a single file.
Extent "Top toolbar => Yellow toolbox icon => Sub-divide polygons - split to size" to also divide lines.
Add "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Split lines into fixed length segments", which split all lines into segments of the selected size. Two options are available, a spline and linear fit to the existing data, with the default a spline fit. To change to a linear fit, select "1" in the pop-up selection form. See "DISCUSSION 1: Sub-dividing lines into fixed intervals"
Add "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Combine connected triangulations", which split connected triangulations into separate objects. This is very useful to split separate triangulations out when they are transferred from other software as a single object. See "DISCUSSION 2: Combine connected mesh triangles"
Add "Ribbon => Marker => Marker actions => Distance => Add grid distance columns", which add grid columns with the shortest distance between the visible markers and the visible vertices of meshes and lines. Three columns are added for each mesh object; the 3D distance "DistXYZ", the 2D distance "DistXY" and the Z-distance "DistZ".
Changes
"Ribbon => Drillhole => Geotech lines" data is now added to the clipping list, and clipped when creating clipping/sections.
When picking line points with "Top toolbar => Ruler => Create measure lines", the points can be deleted from back to front by pressing the "Delete" or "Backspace" buttons on the keyboard - line picking errors can thus now be corrected.
The single button "Ribbon => Mesh => Load and import different file formats => Other formats" now load all the file formats from non-mining software packages OBJ, IV, VRM, STL, PLY, VTK and VTP.
Bug fixes
Many stability improvements from user feedback - fixed.
Interface docking did not work as expected - fixed.
Errors when loading "Ribbon => Drillhole => Other actions => Marker points" - fixed.
"Ribbon => External => BodRecon" did not save DXF-files due to a version clash -fixed.
The drill hole collar text showed incorrectly when the collar data was filtered in the grid - fixed.
Line vertices did not automatically update - fixed.
Trajec3D DXF-file did not bring the colour across correctly - fixed.
DISCUSSION 1: Sub-dividing lines into fixed intervals
Subdividing lines into fixed intervals with "Top toolbar => Yellow toolbox icon => Sub-divide polygons - split to size" have many uses. The largest benefit is probably that it allows automated open pit reconciliations when used in conjunction with "Ribbon => Marker => Marker actions => Distance => Add grid distance columns", which I will explain in more detail in the next newsletter. The function also allows automatic cleanup and simplification of section strings to transfer to numerical modelling packages such as Map3D.
DISCUSSION 2: Combine connected mesh triangles
I often receive files from Geology Departments where multiple fault surfaces are combined into single objects. Splitting the separate connected triangulations out afterwards is not trivial and time consuming. The new function "Top toolbar => Blue toolbox icon => Split lines into fixed length segments" simplifies this process significantly, as it combines connected triangulations into separate objects as shown below.
