Since the release of GEOVIA Surpac 6.4, there is another way to view slices of DTMs, block models and so on without needing to define those sections every time. This functionality is called Planes and has many advantages over classic slicing, including the speed at which you can create and view slices, even with very large active block models.
Most Surpac users hide the Planes tab away and revert back to classic slicing, missing out on this great functionality. Today’s tip will kickstart our series on Planes and how to better utilize this feature to save Surpac users time and effort in your daily tasks.
What are Planes?
Think of Planes as viewing corridors that can be invoked at any time. You only have to define the planes once and they then can be stored on a network so that anyone can use them. This is opposed to classic slicing whereby you must define the plane every time you want to use it, or save everything as a string file and use section string files.
Where can I find Planes?
When Surpac (Version 6.4 and above) is first installed, the Planes functionality appears as a small unobtrusive tab in the top right hand corner of your screen.
If you have imported your own custom profile into Surpac, this may not even be visible. To activate it, use View > Dockable windows > Planes.
Once you can see the Planes tab, hover your mouse over the tab and then use the pin icon (toggle button) to keep it pinned while you test out the function.
Now that you know how to find the Planes tool, let’s test it out by creating some elevation sections through a pit design and block model.
How are Planes typically used?
1. Open the pit design and model in Surpac. The diagram below shows the model colored by attribute and constrained.
2. Now, use Planes to slice an elevation range. In this case I will go from the 150mRL to 80mRL at 10m increments. Click on the icon below to start Quick Planes.
3. The result is shown below. Note that the Plane definition is now stored and can be used at any other time.
4. If you want to see the grade of the blocks in simple block outlines, you may use the following icons. First, turn off the faces.
5. Secondly, draw the section as polylines.
6. Then apply some block shrinkage.
7. Select an attribute to display in each block.
8. The result showing the grade contained within each block is shown below.
In subsequent posts we will be discussing more Planes functionality including;
- How to split the screen to give more clarity on a section
- How to save a section to string file
- Utilizing the Dynamic 2D grid with Planes
- Creating parallel Planes
- Creating a Plane from 3 points
- Digitizing on a Plane
Part 2 and Part 3 of our Planes series are now up, so please check them out for more tips!
Watch our recent webinar on Planes in Surpac
Ash Colton
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