Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D

22nd A new object (file) to store and manipulate large surfaces is being introduced in
MineSight® 3-D version 3.60. The Large Gridded Object (LGO) is designed to store data
on a large grid. The LGO file is based on the same concept as the MineSight® Gridded
Annual Surface File (also known as file13)

Seminar 1. Creating a new LGO file

To create a new LGO file you start with creating an “empty” LGO file, containing
information about the grid.
This is done with the “Create LGO grid” tool, which can be accessed from the File menu
(File->Create LGO). The dialog is shown in Picture1.

Picture 1. Create LGO grid dialog.

You need to provide grid origin, grid block size, number of blocks in X and Y
directions, and grid orientation (for horizontal grids it is just the rotation angle;
positive direction is clockwise). Surface elevation values will be stored at block
centers (Picture2). Elevation
values are stored with double
precision. There is, for all
practical purposes, no limit on
the number of blocks in a grid
(grid is limited by 2 billion x
2 billion and by the machine
limit of the file size).

Picture 2. Grid at block centers.

Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D Page 1

You can also import grid information from an existing LGO file or an existing model
file (use Edit->Import options)
To save the information to a file, use either File->Save option, or the Save icon on
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the toolbar.
Annual
By default the dialog creates a horizontal LGO with zero elevation offset (zero
Elevation coordinate of the origin). To create a non-horizontal LGO click on the
“inclined grid” toggle to enable fields for Z coordinate of the origin and the grid
Seminar
plane orientation.

Surfaces in an LGO file are added and populated via the LGO View object in
MineSight® 3-D. There is no limit on the number of surfaces in an LGO.

Note on storing/accessing data. The data for each surface in an LGO file is
stored by rows. Each row of data is compressed. Only rows that have data for the
given surface are stored.

2. LGO View objects.

An LGO View object in MineSight® 3-D is similar to other “views” into MineSight®
files: Model Views and Drillhole Views. To create a new LGO View, use the LGO
View menu from the folder’s “New” menu in the Data Manager.
Upon creating a new LGO View the “LGO View properties” dialog is displayed.
The LGO View properties dialog is in many ways similar to the Model View
properties dialog. From the LGO View properties dialog you can control the display
properties, create and populate surfaces, and perform a number of operations on
the surfaces.

a. Displaying existing surfaces.

There are two tabs on the properties dialog that are of interest for displaying
surfaces: the “Display” tab and the “Surfaces->Properties” sub-tab.

On the “Display” tab (Picture 3) you can control the 3D display method to polyline
or surface, and set the display ranges for 3D and Filtered (2D) views.
In addition you can regulate the maximum allowed amount of memory (in Mega-
Bytes) used when displaying a single surface. The 3D range is adjusted to satisfy
the memory requirement.
To save memory, you can use the “thin” feature, if a less precise display is
satisfactory for you: “thinned” display shows every N-th point in X and M-th point
in Y direction. The “thin” feature also applies to filtered views; switching between
planes will be faster when using the “thin” feature.
In addition, on the “Display” tab you can see the bounding limits of the current
display ranges. The limits are in Easting and Northing directions; they are
calculated and displayed for both 3D view range and filtered view range.
The toggle “Show grid display area” brings in the viewer the grid bounds for the
current 3D range.

From the “Surfaces->Properties” tab (picture 4) you can control visibility and color
of individual surfaces. A colored square is displayed near the surface name. If
Page 2 Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D
 a surface is selected to be visible its name is displayed in bold font in the list. In
22nd picture 4 the surface “mergedpitandtopo” is indicated as visible while “surface1” is
not.
Annual The line style and visibility for the polyline display, as well as face visibility for the
surface display, are controlled from the LGO View material properties dialog. The
button with the material icon on it, located in the top-right corner of the Surfaces-
Seminar >Properties tab, invokes the LGO View material properties dialog. For instance,
to show only grid points use the “polyline” display method on the LGO properties
dialog, and on LGO View material, set the polyline properties to points “on” and
lines “off”.

Since LGO’s can potentially be very large and redrawing a surface can take time,
there is no “immediate viewer refresh”. For any display change to take effect, you
must click the “Apply” button at the bottom of the LGO View properties dialog.

Picture 3. LGO View Properties Dialog. Display tab.

Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D Page 3

 22nd
Annual
Seminar

Picture 4. LGO View Properties Dialog. Surfaces tab.

b. Adding new / renaming / deleting surfaces.

To add a new surface, specify a new name and click the “Add” button. You can
initialize the surface to a constant value within an optional boundary.

To rename a surface enter a new name in the same “New name” field and click
the “Rename” button. The Rename function requires a single surface selection - if
multiple surfaces are selected, none will be renamed.

You can also delete multiple selected surfaces by clicking the “Delete” button.

c. Storing surfaces to Geometry (DTM).

To store a selected gridded surface to a Geometry object go to the “To DTM” sub-
tab on the “Surfaces” tab of the properties dialog. You can store selected surfaces
to a folder and create (multiple) object(s). In this case each surface’s name will be
used as an object name. You also have an option to store selected surfaces to a
single object. In this case the surface name will be used as an attribute name. You
Page 4 Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D
 can limit the geometry surface being created by the LGO View range or use the
22nd entire LGO grid. When limiting by range, the 3D range limits are used. Thin factors
will also be applied in this case. This is the only case when limiting by LGO range
Annual takes into account thin factors.

Warning. If not limiting surfaces in any way, either by range or by boundary, be

Seminar mindful of the size the DTM (shell) can take.

d. Min/Max of a group of surfaces.

You can create a new surface by taking the minimum or maximum of a group of
selected surfaces. You can use the entire LGO grid or limit by a 3D Display range.
You can also limit within an optional boundary. The result can be stored to an
existing surface, or a new surface can be created.

e. Importing data to LGO.

There are currently 3 ways of importing data

You can import surface ASCII files, from another LGO View, or from Geometry by
gridding a surface.

All import options allow limiting of the imported surface by a boundary and allow
the resetting of values before importing. All import options provide a default way
of naming a surface being imported, and in each case there is also an option to
specify a name for a new surface.

When importing from an ASCII file, the data is stored at the closest grid point. The
selected file name is used as the default surface name. The ASCII file can be a
Free Format or a CSV file. You have options to specify the order of coordinates
that are being imported and also a number of header lines to skip.

When importing from an LGO the data is interpolated. This allows imports from
grids with different (larger) block sizes or with a different orientation angle. By
default the surface name is kept.

When gridding a geometry surface you can select either object name or attribute
name (if any) as the default surface name.

f. Compressing an LGO File.

Currently the LGO File does not re-use deleted space. Deleting large surfaces,
or overwriting a surface with the one that has significantly less defined rows can
lead to an over-bloated file, big parts of which are not used. To compress the
file use the “Compact LGO File” button, located on the bottom of the “Surfaces-
>Properties” tab.

Large Gridded Objects in MineSight® 3-D Page 5

3. Using LGO Views in tools.
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LGO Views are exposed to the OCB, and can be used in certain tools in
MineSight® 3-D.
The first tool to accept LGOs is the contour tool. Use the button with LGO icon:
Annual
to start OCB selection of an LGO surface (see Picture 5).
Seminar
After the grid surface is selected, proceed with the contouring as usual. Results of
contouring (together with the LGO surface) are displayed on Picture 6.

Picture 5. OCB selection of an LGO Surface

Picture 6. Lgo surface (“surface” type display with thin factors 5 and 5) and contours
produced by the contour tool.
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