MINING SOFTWARE
ThreeDify GeoMine optimal open pit to block caving transition example
ThreeDify’ s year of optimisation
Following 2015, what it calls its year of integration, 2016 has been the year of optimisation for the ThreeDify product line. The company told IM it has been focusing on broadening the scope and strengthening the robustness of its optimisation tools while continuing to expand its product portfolio.“ As the reserve in an open pit gets depleted, many medium to large open pit mines face challenges in determining the best cut-over point from open pit to underground mining for projects that have the potential to be mined by a combined method of open-pit and underground mining. The year 2016 witnessed the introduction of Optunimizer, a new, unique open pit to underground transition module that determines the optimal transition zone from open pit to underground mining with the objective of maximising total NPV of the entire mine.” Optunimizer is built upon two of ThreeDify’ s mature optimisers: FlowPit for pit optimisation, and Stopemizer for stope and block caving optimisation. Combined with iScheduler for development and production scheduling, ThreeDify says Optunimizer offers the following benefits to mine planners: n Defines the optimum transition zone from open pit to underground mining, eliminating the need for a trial and error process and thus greatly improving productivity n Maximises NPV( or other variable) by defining the best overall option considering infrastructure development and mine preparation with the aim of ensuring plant feed( ramping up, stockpiling, etc) within one integrated software package, GeoMine n Fast integrated design and scheduling of both open-pit and underground mines with resource constraints n Supports different mining methods including all stoping methods as well as the block
caving method( support for longwall and sublevel caving is underway) ThreeDify OptimCut, a former standalone product, is being integrated directly into iScheduler. OptimCut is a Constrained Dynamic Programming package which optimises cut-off grades and production rates over the whole life of mine. This integration will allow the power of OptimCut to be leveraged by iScheduler’ s long term mine schedules for both open-pit and underground mining.
The company says that it has also achieved a significant speed-up for ThreeDify’ s implementation of the RBF( Radial Basis Function) algorithm, the engine that underpins GeoModeler’ s implicit modelling module. With a big data set,“ what used to take hours now takes minutes. With this speed-up, geologists can now automatically compute dynamic anisotropy surfaces from a big block model quickly and easily, affording the time to conduct what-if scenarios with dynamic anisotropic interpolation within GeoMine.”
ThreeDify further enhanced its XLCoreBlock, a Microsoft Excel Add-in 3D drill hole visualiser and simplified resource estimator, with the sped-up RBF-based implicit modelling module.
Furthermore, besides the support for assays and lithology, the company has overhauled XLCoreBlock to allow the user to import, composite and interpolate both continuous and categorical attributes directly from their Excel worksheet( s). This opens the door for visualising and modelling non-assay data types directly within the user’ s familiar Excel interface.
ThreeDify has also announced the bundling of GeoMine with the already mentioned Aegis, the underground drill & blast design and analysis software developed by iRing Inc. Aegis is a powerful drilling and blasting design tool that is capable of creating drill and blast patterns for an entire stope in seconds, and optimising ring patterns to maximise profit. ThreeDify says:“ With the addition of Aegis, the GeoMine solution is now a one stop shop for all your mine planning needs. Whether you are a resource geologist facing orebody modelling challenges for your big deposit or a mine planning engineer looking for fast and robust optimisation, design and scheduling tools, ThreeDify GeoMine is an ideal solution.”
MineRP reinvents the planning cycle
MineRP is headquartered in South Africa with offices in Canada, Chile and Australia. MineRP the system is a spatially dimensioned ERP equivalent framework that integrates and aligns Mining Technical Systems( MTS) and ERP domains and the company says“ delivers unrivalled capabilities to manage mineral assets, do rapid unified business planning, and orchestrate operational execution.”
John Megannon, Executive VP for Strategy at MineRP, explains:“ The Mining Technical Systems Industry has traditionally focused on developing standalone, discrete applications that each serve a specific business need and are complex and expensive to integrate. In stark contrast, MineRP’ s Enterprise Framework is based broadly on ERP platforms such as Oracle ERP and SAP, with the caveat that it pertains to mining technical
MineRP has announced the release of MineRP Planner 2017 in January 2017, the roadmap solution replacing its popular Mine2-4D, MineCAD and CADSmine products
40 International Mining | FEBRUARY 2017