One of the most time-consuming tasks for geologists is the construction of a figure of a reasonable deposit in the third dimension.
MineSight Implicit Modeler – MSIM is a mathematical tool that allows geologists to use drillhole data, polygon data, point data and fault plane data, and quickly interpret new geological scenarios.
“The traditional method of linking polygons and polylines from section to section is still probably the most accurate method, but MSIM will let you develop alternatives to your problem, and bring fast solutions and fast alternatives to visualize geological structures,” said the president. from Mintec, John Davies.
Building detailed geological surfaces and solids is essential in a productive mine. And it's also time consuming. MineSight Implicit Modeler changes that. It is the only product of its kind that is part of a mine planning software package. MSIM allows geologists to quickly build geological models directly from drillholes. This avoids the need to manually create and link sections, and this covers complicated surfaces.
“MineSight Implicit Modeler is fast, reproducible and builds multiple models with quick updates,” said John Davies. “You're in charge. Evaluate your solid or surface, then add user-defined control points to guide it. In other words, you can spend more time being a geologist.”
Implicit Modeler is a mathematical method of fitting surfaces that interpolates points on the surface to give a smoother fit. MineSight Implicit Modeler uses the Radial Basis Function algorithm, and can be used to solve the following:
- Create surfaces and solids from drillholes.
- Build complex inverted layer surfaces directly from drillholes, which is useful for coal deposits.
- Linking polygons that have been explicitly defined, and dealing with splits, joins, bifurcations, etc.
- Use drillhole and polygon/polyline/point combinations as input to generate surfaces and solids.
Davies stressed that the release of MineSight Implicit Modeler is just the beginning. “MSIM opens new doors for geological explorations. Imagine you have some spaced drill data and you want to know where to drill next. You can use MSIM to quickly build a solid from your drillholes by showing you the trend and direction of the ore. You can even use it to build 3D mineralized contours directly from your hole, highlighting high-quality regions.”
More conservative geologists may still want to build some sections, and use these, along with the drillhole data, to build surfaces using MSIM.
“You can use polygons that aren't parallel, so if you have multiple ore bodies, it's much easier to model them using local grids and then let the MSIM tool link them together,” said Davies.
“You can even mix planar polygons and sections to better define the orebody – something that is virtually impossible now.”
Through the Link //vimeo.com/channels/minesight/51566346, you can check out John Davies' words about MSIM and new MineSight tools.
