Grid Sets in MineSight®

Grid Sets in MineSight®

Mining Software

In MineSight® 3-D, Grid Sets have many applications largely decided by the task for which
they are used. Non-orthogonal and Non-parallel Grid Sets (NONP) is just one of the many
different types of Grid Sets possible in MineSight® 3-D. They can be very useful for viewing
and plotting a series of vertical sections perpendicular to certain MineSight® 3-D objects (eg:
drifts, roads, dykes, etc.). In this paper we will discuss and present the method of setting up
a NONP Grid Set. Prior to that, however, it is necessary to be familiar with Grid Sets, the Edit
Grid, and the various characteristic associated properties in MineSight® 3-D.
Grid Sets are basically a collection of planes, which helps facilitate and control the data
displayed in the MineSight® 3-D viewer. The Edit Grid, on the other hand, is a separate entity
which constrains the entry and positioning of data in MineSight®. It enables the creation of
new planes which can be added to the Grid Set. These new planes, which are added to the
Grid Set, may or may not follow the orientation on which the Grid Set is based. It is this
property of the Edit Grid which is used during the NONP Grid Set creation.
Considering Grid Sets in MineSight® 3-D, they are of two types, (i) the Orthogonal
Grid Sets (OGS) and, (ii) the Non-orthogonal Grid Sets (NOGS). In the OGS, the planes
are parallel and oriented in the three cardinal directions i.e., the Plan, the EW, and the NS
whereas in the NOGS there is no restriction on the directional orientation of the planes.
These planes can either be parallel (NOP) or they can be non-parallel (NONP).
In order to create a Grid Set, the first step is to right-click on the Data Manager and
select New Grid Set (Figure 1).

Figure 1
A number of options must be specified in the panel that follows after naming the Grid Set
(Figure 2, Figure 3, and Figure 4). As a general note, it always a good idea to name a OGS
with the orientation and spacing in the name (e.g., EW25 for EW 25 spacing). In the Plane
Orientation section, the type of Grid Set is specified. An OGS is created if the Plan, EW, or
NS option is selected (Figure 2) while a NOGS results if the Non-orthogonal (Figure 3) or
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the Perpendicular to the Polyline option (Figure 4) is specified.
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Figure 2

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Figure 3 Annual
Depending upon the type of Grid Set being created, the different sections of
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this panel are either active or inactive (grayed out). Once the Plane orientation is Seminar
decided, use the Grid Set definition section to designate the origin of the planes
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 Grid Sets in MineSight®

by selecting either Specify Origin or Based on PCF. If the planes are based on a
PCF (an OGS), they can be made larger than the PCF dimension by specifying
the percentage. This also increases the number of planes in the Grid Set by the
designated percentage on either side of the range. It is important to remember that
Mining Software the size of the plane doesn’t affect 2-D viewing as MineSight® 3-D automatically
extends each plane to infinity for dynamic slicing.

Figure 4

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Figure 5

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Grid Sets in MineSight®

The user must specify the Easting (X), Northing (Y), and Elevation (Z) of the
base plane in the Origin section when the Specify Origin option was selected under
the Grid Set definition section. It should be noted that the default origin is always
set to the project minimums. The Specify Origin is the only option from which
a NOGS can be created. The desired number of planes and the interval between Mining Software
them in the Grid Set can be specified in the Plane section. There is no restriction on
the number of planes that can be created in a Grid Set. They are usually parallel except for
those in NONP grid set.
When a NOGS is created by selecting the (a) Non-orthogonal or (b) Perpendicular
to polyline option in the Plane orientation section, the Origin, Planes, and Orientation
section should be filled out accordingly (depending upon the choice, one of the Orientation
selections is active). During this process, an origin, the number of planes, plane interval,
strike azimuth and dip (for choice ‘a’) or midpoint, node or plane interval (for choice ’b’)
should be specified.
In order to generate a Grid Set along a polyline (Figure 4), a polyline must first be picked.
It can be done either by the Pick Polyline icon or through the Object Contents Browser
icon. Once selected, the user has the choice to create the Grid Set planes in three different
orientations: midpoint of each sub-segment in the polyline (Figure 6a), at each polyline
node (Figure 6b), or at a fixed specified distance (500m in this case) along the length of the
polyline (Figure 6c). The planes in this type of Grid Set are either parallel or non-parallel
depending upon the polyline. Figure 6d shows the parallel planes when a Grid Set is created
along a horizontal polyline.

Figure 6a

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Figure 6b
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 Grid Sets in MineSight®

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Figure 6c

Figure 6d
As mentioned in an earlier section, the planes in NOGS can be either parallel or non-
parallel. When a Grid Set is non-orthogonal and the planes parallel, the distance between
them is determined by the interval specified in the Plane interval option (Figure 7),
however, if the toggle Use non-orthogonal plane interval is checked, the spacing between
the planes, S, depends on the dip angle and the plane interval (Figure8). In this case, if the
abs (dip) < 45 degrees the value of S = cosine [abs (dip)] x plane interval else it is sine [abs
(dip)] x plane interval.

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Figure 7

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Figure 8
After a Grid Set is created, the characteristics of the constituent planes can be altered by
means of the Grid Set Editor (orientation, size, location,) and the Grid Set Properties dialog
(copy, delete, rename, add, etc.). The Grid Set Editor can be found by right clicking the
Grid Set name in the Data Manager and choosing the Edit option (Figure 9a). It can also be
accessed from the Edit option in the Planes tab of the Grid Set Properties dialog (Figure 9b).
The Snap To option allows the Grid Set to snap either to an Edit Grid or to a particular co-
ordinate while the toggle Show Bases and Axes displays the base point, minor, and major
axes of the Grid Set. Figure 10a shows the snapping of the Grid Set to a new co-ordinate by
offsetting it along the Y-axis by 400m while Figure 10b and Figure 10c show the snapping
to an Edit Grid. The snapping occurs to a base point of the Edit Grid which initially is set to
default at 50% of the major and minor axis. The snapping point can, however, be changed
by adjusting the base point location in the Edit Grid Editor.
The Move along Normal option displaces the planes in a Grid Set by the distance specified
in the normal direction. Thus, in an EW Grid Set the displacement is along the North, in a
NW Grid Set along the East, and in a Plan Grid Set along the Elevation (Figure 11).

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Figure 9a

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Figure 9b

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Grid Sets in MineSight®

Unlike in an Edit Grid where the base point is set at 50% of the major and
minor axis, in a Grid Set it is always set to 0%. The default grid length and
the cell interval are controlled by the project settings. While, the cell interval
determines the number of cells into which the grid plane will be divided, the size
of a Grid Set plane can be increased or decreased by increasing or decreasing the Mining Software
grid length of the major and minor axis. The direction of the change is, however,
dependent on the location of the base point. Figure 12a, shows a 400m increase in the Grid
Set plane size along the major axis when the base point is set at 50% of the major and minor
axis while Figure 12b shows the same amount of change however, with the base point set at
its default location.
The Orientation and the Rotate About are active only for the NOGS and they are also
controlled by the location of the base point. These options define the orientation of the
planes in a Grid Set (Figure 13). Figure 13a defines the changes in the orientation when
the strike azimuth and the dip are changed from 0 degrees to 45 degrees while Figure 13b
illustrates the change when it is rotated about its major axis by 45degrees from the original
0 degrees.

Figure 10a

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Figure 10b

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Figure 10c
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Figure 11

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Figure 12a

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Figure 12b

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Figure 13b
The Mirror w/respect to the base plane option inverts the planes in the Grid Set with
respect to the base plane. The base plane in a Grid Set is basically the first plane in the list
of planes defined in the Planes tab of the Grid Set Properties dialog to be discussed next.
Figure 14a and 14b show the effect of using this option. In figure 14a, the Grid Set has
three planes; the first plane being the base plane defined by NonOrtho 2607441.8, while the
other two planes are at an interval of -200m (NonOrtho 2607241.8) and -400m (NonOrtho
2607041.8) from it. Using this option (Figure 14b), the base plane remains at the same
location (NonOrtho 2607441.8), however the other two planes are inverted and reordered
around it in such a way that they are +200m (NonOrtho 2607641.8) and +400m (NonOrtho
2607841.8) from it.

Figure 14a
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Figure 14b
The Grid Set Properties dialog accessed from the Data Manager by right clicking the Grid
Set name (Figure 9b) has an additional Planes tab (apart from the usual tabs found in the
Object Properties dialog) with several options specifically targeted at the Grid Set (Figure
9b). The planes section shows the names of the planes in the Grid Set which is basically the
plane distance (Figure 15). For NOGS, it is the distance from the origin (0,0,0) with a prefix
NonOrtho. For OGS, the distance and prefix is the co-ordinate and name for that direction
(Plan, EW, NS). A typical example of a plane in a Plan, EW, and NS Grid Set would be Plan
1000, North 5000, and East 6000 respectively.

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Figure 15c
The Edit Plane section deletes a selected plane while the Copy Planes creates new planes
by copying and offsetting the selected plane by the distance specified. For example, Figure
16 shows the grid planes after deleting the first plane and copying and offsetting the third
plane by 200m.

Figure 16a Figure 16b

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Figure 16c
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The Label planes section allows the renaming of the selected planes with a
user specified label in the Label textbox. The label can include combinations of
the wildcard tokens $count and $dist for count and distance. The start value for
the count, increment, no. of decimal places and no. of digits with zero padding
Mining Software can be specified. Figure 17, shows how the three planes in Figure 16 are renamed
to Plane 1.0, Plane 2.0, and Plane 3.0 with $count option.

Figure 17
Similarly, the use of $dist adds the plane distance to the plane name (Figure 18a). This
renaming option can be of particular interest during plotting when the user doesn’t wish
to display the default tags with the plane names. The Default button reverts back to the
default plane names (Figure 18b). The Add button adds a new plane to the set of planes in
the Grid Set (Figure 19). It can be sent that when this option was used the Edit Grid shown in
Figure 19b gets added to the list of planes (Figure 19a - Figure 19c). The new plane is added
with the orientation of the Edit Grid but with the dimension of the Grid Set. In this case, the
dimension refers to the number of rows and columns in a Grid Set plane along the major
and minor axis. For example, if a Grid Set plane along the major and minor axis measures
1100 and 1400 respectively with a cell interval of 100, then the dimension of a plane in
this Grid Set will be 11 x 14 ( Figure 9a). The use of this option also changes the defined
dimension of the Edit Grid to that of the Grid Set if it is any different to it. The Snap button
creates an Edit Grid at the selected plane in the Grid Set.
The Sort button provides several alternatives to sort the planes (Figure 20) either in the
increasing or decreasing order while the Edit button brings up the Grid Set Editor dialog
(Figure 9b).

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Figure 18a and 18b
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Figure19a

Figure 19b

Figure19c Figure 20
Now that we have covered the various characteristics properties of a Grid Set, we can 24th
continue to configure a non-orthogonal and non-parallel (NONP) Grid Set. These Grid Sets Annual
have their planes non-parallel unlike the earlier discussion on the non-orthogonal Grid Sets Mintec
where the planes were parallel to one another. Seminar

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 Grid Sets in MineSight®

In order to create a NONP Grid Set, the first step is to create a non-orthogonal
Grid Set with one plane as shown in Figure 21. This refers to the set up
parameters used in Figure 3. If plane dimension (major/minor axis grid length,
cell interval) is not satisfactory, then
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Figure 21
it has to be edited in the Axis section of the Grid Set Editor dialog as shown previously in
Figure 9 and Figure 12.
Once it is done, the second step is to snap an Edit Grid to this plane. This is done from the
Planes tab in the Grid Set Properties dialog as mentioned earlier and shown in Figure 22a.
When the corresponding Grid Set is closed in the Data Manager, the viewer will be as it is
in Figure 22b. At this stage, the user can either keep or delete the original plane in the Grid
Set. Deletion of the plane can be done as shown in Figure 16. The Edit Grid will be used as a
reference to add non-orthogonal and non-parallel planes to the Grid Set.

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Figure 22a Figure 22b
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Figure 23 Figure 24
The third step involved in the process of the creating a NONP Grid Set is to use the Edit
Grid Editor to shift and reposition the Edit Grid to a desired location (using the rotate, offset,
orientation options). The Edit Grid Editor (Figure 23) has very similar functionality as the
Grid Set editor described in the earlier sections. It can be found under the Edit Grid tab in
MineSight® (Figure 24) or from by the icon on the MineSight® icon bar. Figure 25 shows a
typical repositioning of the Edit Grid defined initially at the Grid Set plane to a new location
(with changed position and orientation in the project space).

Figure 25
The penultimate step in the generation of the NONP Grid Set is the addition of the newly 24th
repositioned Edit Grid to the existing set of planes in the Grid Set by using the Add button in Annual
the Planes tab of the Grid Set Properties dialog. Figures 26a and Figure 26b show the planes Mintec
in the Grid Set before and after the addition of the Edit Grid. Please note that the two present Seminar
planes in the Grid Set (Figure 26b) are non-parallel.
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The fifth and the last step in the creation of the NONP Grid Set is an iterative
process and it involves the repetition of the third and the fourth steps as many
times as the number of planes desired in the Grid Set. Figure 27 shows the final
NONP Grid Set created in this exercise has three planes. Appropriate renaming
Mining Software of the planes can be done, thereafter, as mentioned in the previous sections
(Figure 17, Figure 18).

Figure 26a

Figure 26b

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Figure 27

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Once the Grid Set is formed, it needs to be attached to the MineSight® 3-D
viewer for proper display of the data. This is done by icon either in the
MineSight® 3-D icon bar or in the viewer properties dialog. Once set, the planes in
the GS are listed in the Planes section of the MineSight® 3-D icon bar (Figure 28).
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Figure 28
At this point either 3-D volume clipping or 2-D view mode can be used to browse
through the data (Figure 27). 3-D volume clipping (Figure 29) defines a specific volume on
either side of the current plane while 2-D (Figure 30) mode restricts the view precisely to the
current plane. The clipping volume defined under the Clipping tab of the Viewer Properties
dialog (Figure 31) can be made Equal or Unequal to the range specified on either side of the
plane.

Figure 29

Figure 30

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Figure 31a Figure 31b

In order to plot the sections, in the plot layout editor dialog a Grid Set must be specified
in the Define controlling Grid Set section (Figure 32). This is required to control the
orientation of the data in the plot. By default the Main Viewer Area’s Grid Set is

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Figure 32

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selected, however, this can be changed to a selected viewer by selecting an Area

and then choosing the Use the Viewer Area’s Grid Set option. The planes of the
controlling Grid Set are the ones which are shown for selection when the Print
| Preview button is hit (Figure 33). Here, the default ‘NonOrtho’ prefix for the
planes in the NONP Grid Set has been changed to ‘Plane’ prefix following the Mining Software
renaming procedure described earlier (Figure 18a).

Figure 33
One more important option is the use of the token tool ?PLN in the Title block to display
the plane names in the plots (Figure 34). The default prefix is always displayed for the planes
if they are not renamed (for example “NonOrtho xxxx” for a non-orthogonal Grid Set).

Figure 34

Currently, in MineSight® 3-D the minimum easting is always on the left side of the section
view. This asks for at times, some attention, while plotting with a NONP Grid Set. If it is
seen that some of the planes produce inverted views, the following few steps should be
practiced in order to make sure that all of the planes face the right direction.
a) Identify the planes in the Grid Set that produce the inverted view. For example,
consider that in a Grid Set (X) there are four planes A, B, C, and D, of which, the
planes C and D produce inverted view.
b) Copy the original Grid Set (X) twice (say X and Y). In one of them (X) delete the
planes that produce the inverted view while in the other (Y) keep planes that
produce the inverted ones. So Grid Set X will now consist of the planes A and B 24th
while Grid Set Y will consist of the C and D planes. Annual
c) Create two viewers (Viewer A and Viewer B), and attach one of the two Grid Sets Mintec
(X and Y) to each viewer. For example, attach Grid Set “X” is to Viewer A while Seminar
Grid Set “Y” to Viewer B.
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d) Use the viewer properties to invert the view by 1800 on the viewer which has
the Grid Set with the inverted planes (Grid Set “Y”) attached to it i.e. Viewer B.

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Figure 35

e) While plotting the sections, use one of the viewer at a time.

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