February 2012
Storing survey and GIS data
Introduction to MineSight Planning Database uses and Surveying
The MineSight Planning Database (MSPD) is often thought of as useful for only planning tasks, but it does
much more. The MSPD is a central repository for data used and generated not just by MineSight planning
and scheduling applications, but also for Surveying and GIS data. MSPD is useful for so many disparate tasks
because it allows you to store data along with descriptive information about the data.
Figure 1: Chart displaying the relationships between the MSPD and various MineSight products.
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The MSPD is hosted by Microsoft SQL Server. Generally, the free version of SQL (SQL Express) is sufficient for most MineSight usage. The result is a third-party, open database providing an exposed data model. This also allows you to easily run queries, produce reports and summaries while also integrating seamlessly with other systems.
The MSPD can contain data such as: The stored data can be used for:
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Cuts
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Customized reserves reporting
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Material routing
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Ore control
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Material classification
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Production reports
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Equipment
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Reconciliation
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3D road profiles
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Stockpile handling
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Reserves
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Daily activity planning
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Network geometry
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Cycle time calculations
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Attributes
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Material routing
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Equipment requirements
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Feasibility/infeasibility studies
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Survey and GIS Attributes
Surveyors on a daily basis capture and import point or line data to generate geometry objects in MineSight. The data captured can be for several purposes onsite. Pickups performed may represent Crests and Toes, Pit floors, Ore stockpiles, Waste Dumps or Leach pads, for example. All of these pickups will have an additional number of unique and specific information attributes.
When data is imported as standard geometry, you are only able to represent a few things: the information of the data, one attribute through element name, and a second attribute through the material type. However, you may wish for survey data to reflect a whole host of other information – some examples of which are listed below in Table 2. When using the MSPD to store survey data, you can store as much information about your data as desired.
Common attributes for pickups
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Type
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What was captured? Toe? Crest?
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Surveyor
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Who was the surveyor who made the pickup?
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Mine Area
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In what Mine Area was the pickup taken?
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Pit
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In which Pit was the pickup taken?
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Phase
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What Phase of mining is the pickup for?
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Adjusted by
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Who was the surveyor who made the adjusted pickup?
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In Progress/ Completed
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A boolean query of whether a certain pickup has been completed.
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Original Date of Survey
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Date of when the pickup was taken.
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Date Re-captured
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Date of recapture if multiple pickup dates are used.
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Instrument
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Instrument used to take the pickup.
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Notes
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Freeform notes with regard to the pickup.
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Adding survey attributes to the MSPD
Figure 2: The Edit MSPD Attributes dialog, where new data attributes can be added to the MSPD.
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After you have connected to your chosen MSPD, go via the Utilities menu and access MSPD | Edit MSPD Attributes. In this table, you can add attributes to the MSPD.
In Figure 2 at left, are some basic ones, such as Surveyor, Instrument, Date and Type.
Importing data to MSPD
Data can be imported into MSPD using several different methodologies. How data is imported will depend on the data type; see Table 3 below for information on how to import various data types to MSPD.
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Data Type
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How to Import to MSPD
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MS3D Geometry
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Select data, and use Select → Export Selection → Save Selection to MSPD
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Free Format Text
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Import data using the Data Manager → Import →; Survey free form to MSPD (all ASCII) option. Attribute columns in the text file will be mapped to User Defined Fields in the importer.
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ESRI Shapefile
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Import data using Data Manager → Import → Shapefile to MSPD
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Displaying data from MSPD
Data in MSPD is displayed by using a MineSight object called a “Geometry View”. A geometry view contains a link to a specific data set within a specific MSPD. These can be created from the Data Manager, using the New à Geometry View option.
Figure 3: Upon creating a Geometry View, you will have the option to filter the display based on any number of attributes.
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Once data is imported to MSPD, it can be displayed by creating a Geometry View linking to the location the data was imported to. If necessary, filter the Geometry View by any of the attributes you have captured. In Figure 3 above, you can see that we have used ‘Type’ as a filtering item. This can be particularly useful if you only want to display survey data from certain dates, certain areas of the mine, or any other data stored in the database.
Adding attributes and editing attribute values after import
Once data has been imported to MSPD, we can add new attributes to elements or edit existing attribute values. To do this, use the Element | MSPD Edit Element Attributes function. From this dialog, you can add additional attributes to the element provided that they already exist in MSPD, or you can edit the value of attributes that have already been assigned to the element.
Figure 4: From the User Edit Attributes dialog, you can add or edit attributes associated with specific elements stored in MSPD.
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In summary, the full power of MSPD can be unlocked when it is used for more than just planning data. By utilizing MSPD to store survey or GIS data, we can keep track of a large number of attributes that cannot be tracked when the data is stored as standard MS3D geometry. This allows you to keep your data more organized, and use the data more efficiently. For more information on applying MSPD to survey or GIS data, contact Mintec Technical Support.
