Using the Interactive Stope Designer

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The Interactive Stope Designer, part of the Stope Design Tools Module, introduced in GEOVIA Surpac™ 6.6 allows underground engineers to create practical mining shapes quickly.Here are some simples tips to help you get the most from the Interactive Stope Designer.

Use appropriate reference objects
The Interactive Stope Designer works best when you have reference objects to use as a guide while digitising the shape that you plan to mine. Reference objects can be solids that represent the orebody model; structures like faults that will impact on the geometry of the stope; drives and declines that will be used to access the stopes; or the block model shown with a certain grade cutoff or rock type.

Best results will be obtained if you have all the data loaded into graphics layers, or in the case of the block model, displayed with appropriate constraints and colouring before you commence the stope design project.

Reference objects showing starting reference plane for Interactive Stope DesignerUse Planes at the right spacing and orientation
Planes are used to provide the spatial order for the polygons from which the design solid is created. Create a set of planes with these characteristics before commencing:

  1. You can use horizontal or inclined planes if they are more suitable. The design process works the same, regardless of the plane orientation.
  2. The spacing between planes should be small enough that your design is sensitive to geometry variations, but not so small that you have too many planes on which to create design polygons.
  3. Be aware that the polygons on the first and last planes will be extruded by the plane toward and away distances. Make sure you consider this when deciding where to position the first and last planes.

Designing the practical mining shapesDrafting tool edge follow mode to offset points from an existing segment
The digitiser is the principal tool that you will use to create the practical mining shape on each plane. Familiarise yourself with these digitiser features as they will significantly improve your productivity and efficiency:

  1. Digitiser snap modes and their associated keyboard shortcuts (1=Plane, 2=Point, 3=Line and 4=Triangle) to quickly change snap mode.
  2. Digitiser keyboard shortcuts for undo (CTRL+Z), redo (CTRL+Y), start a new segment (–) and close (0) the current segment.
  3. Digitiser Drafting Mode (shortcut key=5) to provide a protractor and scale, with user definable angle and distance snap increment settings, for greater control when digitising.
  4. Digitiser Edge Follow Drafting Mode which allows you to easily maintain a specified offset from an existing string. This is particularly useful when you need to maintain a minimum stope width
  5. Fine tune the digitised polygons using the Point and Segment select modes with the Move Tool to quickly and conveniently make changes.
  6. Use the slope angle displayed in the status bar to ensure you comply with the minimum footwall design slope angle.

Evaluating the shape on a plane
After creating a closed segment on a plane use the EVALUATE STOPE POLYGON function to calculate volume, mass, grade and metal content for the segment. Be aware that this is extruded by the plane away and towards distances to create a solid. It is this solid for which the volume is reported.

Properties panel showing properties of the selected object, including user properties assigned by the Interactive Stope DesignerCreating the design solid
After creating a closed segment on each plane, use the STOPE OBJECT CREATE function to generate the solid and calculate the volume, mass, grade and metal content. The calculated values are assigned to the solid allowing you to use Trisolation Select mode to select the object and display these values in the properties panel.

Making changes to your design after creating the design solid
Surpac extrudes the segments on the first and last planes by the specified towards and away distances creating two new segments. These extruded segments and the digitised segments on all other planes are used to create the design solid.

If it becomes necessary to edit some of the digitised segments and then recreate the design solid you must first delete these extruded segments otherwise Surpac will fail to correctly create the new stope solid. The steps to make sure you do this correctly are:

  1. Delete the stope solid
  2. Use DRAW LINES to draw ALL strings in the design layer.
  3. Delete the first and last segments.

You can now use the STOPE OBJECT CREATE function to create the new stope solid.

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