Are your surveys really slow to load? Are you having difficulty rotating your 3D view?
The problem might be the level of detail in your survey files. If the level of detail of survey files is unnecessarily high, it will slow down the 3D view for no reason. This is often the case with stope CMS files. To reduce the level of unnecessary detail in your survey files:
Open the Survey Setup Window (can be found in the General Analysis app) and select the surveys you’re interested in (on the left). Click on Decimation, then turn on the Decimation Override using the tick box. Set the Target Reduction. This number is how much mXrap will try to reduce the size of your surveys (i.e. with a Target Reduction of 90%, mXrap will try to reduce the number of points to 10% of the original size). You should set this to as high a number as possible, while still being able to see the level of detail in your surveys that you need (somewhere between 60 and 90% often improves the speed of the 3D view dramatically, without making the surveys look awful). Don’t forget to Rebuild the Cache and hit Save before looking at your 3D view!
If you need a refresher on updating surveys, watch the Survey Setup training video here.
Are you unable to see your surveys, but can’t work out why? Are some of your surveys located a long way away from the rest of your mine when they shouldn’t be?
This could be due to the input configuration of your survey files. The order of the co-ordinate components (Easting, Northing, RL) are sometimes different for some survey formats, so we have to ‘flip’ the X and Y co-ordinates. This is often the case for DTM files. To fix this:
Open the Survey Setup Window (can be found in the General Analysis app) and find the surveys with an issue. Click on Input Config, then turn on the Override using the tick box. Click the swap button between X and Y to change whether X and Y are the first or second column. Don’t forget to rebuild the cache and hit save!
If you need a refresher on updating surveys, watch the Survey Setup training video here.
As part of the ACG’s Ground Support Guidelines for Rockburst Prone Conditions research project, we have developed an application for damage mapping. It is a web-based application design for use with a tablet. This allows users to do their damage mapping offline while underground on the tablet, then when the tablet is connected to the network, the information is synced with our server and pulled into mXrap (making it a single pass process).
Each damage mapping instance is stored as a separate report. Within each level plan, mine development is segmented into short lengths (approximately 5m) called ‘Tracks’. Information is stored on each of these tracks, to allow the history of each underground location to be monitored.
Tracks in damage mapping web application. Tracks shown in orange are selected for use in the current report
Data collected for each track includes:
Location co-ordinates
Location name
Corrosion
Water
Excavation height/span
Rock Mass Characteristics
Installed Ground Support
Falls of Ground
Photos
Assigning ground support in web application
In addition to this information, damage data is also collected with more detail at each point on the profile (backs, shoulder, walls and floor). Damage information is captured in terms of both broad damage scales (i.e. Rock and Support Damage Scales) and detailed observations of individual support element damage. In addition to damage data, information on locations which have not been damaged can also be captured.
Damage data on different points on the profile of the drive (web application)
The application focuses on damage mapping for rockburst occurrences, however will soon be expanded to cater for routine damage mapping, with a site specific configuration allowing mines to choose which information to capture for day-to-day damage mapping.
Once the damage data has been synced into mXrap, the mXrap app is used for visualisation and analysis. The basic viewer window operates in a similar manner to the general analysis 3D view. Users can view and filter their damage locations and colour them by different parameters. Seismic events, blasts etc. can be seen and filtered simultaneously.
3D view showing damage locations coloured by Support Damage Scale (mXrap application)
The user can also select individual tracks/points and see the more detailed damage data that was entered.
Points on profile showing damage (mXrap application)
This includes photos, which allows users to easily organise their photos so that they can look at photos from a specific location underground over time.
