Whittle is the world’s most trusted strategic mine planning tool used for optimisation and most GMPs provide some level of support for its venerable *.mod file format. Regardless of the software origin, any block model can be transferred using text (ASCII) files.
 

Often, a block model will be structured in a specific way where multiple attributes are used to store content of specific grade in multiple rock types. Until recently, there was no support for importing these model types. As some clients required this functionality, Whittle has been enhanced to include it.
 

With the recent release of Whittle 4.5.4, a check box named Element per rock type was been added to Assign fields.  When checked this box allows you to specify the elements per rock-type from the drop-down combination  boxes in the Assign field names table. Now the element appears with defined rock codes and element name separated by a dot—for example, rock.element. This is useful in real situations, when the number of elements may go up to 30 and the number of rock types as high as say 200.
 

Let’s look at a simple example with multiple rock types and multiple elements. Two waste rock types that will never be processed but have sufficiently different properties, including stability parameters and mining costs, need to be modelled separately. There are also three rock types that have potential ore and as a polymetalic deposit it has five original quality attributes. Only three of the attributes are used in this example and a few rows of the model file are displayed here.
 

The Import procedure for .csv files is well known and he first several steps are no different from the standard import procedure which starts with entering rock types and element data and defining quatities. Once this is done, now in Whittle 4.5.4 you can map columns combining rock types and elements. Once this is done you can check the Element per Rock Type box to unlock additional options that allow you to map all combinations of ROCKTYPE-ELEMENT. 

Once mapping is complete importing with proceed as normal.

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