Gemcom Minex Tutorial 3
Mozell Gentges
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This document is designed to give you an overview of Minex computerized mine planning software. It explains basic concepts that you must understand in order to use the more advanced features of Minex.
When the software has been installed, more detailed information is available in the Minex Help, which you can open from the Help menu. You can also contact your local Gemcom support office for training.
When you click, or move the pointer over, some menu commands, a secondary, or subordinate, menu appears. To indicate that you should select a command on a subordinate menu, this documentation uses a greater than (>) sign to separate the main menu command from the subordinate menu command. For example, File > Project > Project Manager means choose the File menu, move the mouse pointer over the Project command, and then select Project Manager on the subordinate menu.
Drag With the mouse pointer over the object, press and hold the left mouse button to select the object. Move the pointer until the object is in the position you want, and then release the mouse button.
Tree A graphical representation of a hierarchical structure. A plus sign next to an item on the tree indicates that you can expand the item to show subordinate items; a minus sign indicates that you can collapse the item.
The mine design functions in Minex are integrally linked to a geology model so that mine designs can align with economic or geological considerations such as depth, strip ratio, or optimum pit limits. The reserves and quality data are stored in a database for fast access, editing, manipulation, and reporting.
If you already have an older version of Minex installed, you can uninstall it before installing the new version or you can run both versions. If you do uninstall Minex, any data files that you created remain on your computer.
The first time you start Minex, you might have to respond to several messages to successfully start the program. After you have started Minex for the first time and licensed it correctly, you can start Minex by double-clicking the icon and clicking Accept.
If you do not have a licence, you can run Minex, plot geometry data, and display grids, but you cannot save any data. This enables you to gain a general impression of Minex if you have a demo CD. To access the full functionality of Minex, you must license it.
The field to the right of the Validate button reads Valid, and the check boxes in the Licenced Modules pane are selected according to the modules included in your licence. The licence file (license.dat) is automatically generated in the \shared\etc\license folder.
To begin using Minex, it is a good idea to start a project and set the project directory to the location of the data files you will work with. When you have a project, it is easy to work with your data files.
Tip: If you see a message that some files cannot be moved, check whether or not those files are read-only in Windows Explorer. If they are, clear the Read-Only check box in the file properties and use the Organise Project command again.
You can set Minex to use the metric or imperial measurement system. When you set the measurement system, you inform Minex what system your data already uses. Minex does not convert data when you set the measurement system.
When you create a new project, Minex automatically sets the local origin based on the first point it finds in the geometry file that is displayed or in the database that is opened (for example, boreholeDB, reservesDB).
Note: You use the Visualization tab for advanced tasks that are beyond the scope of this tutorial. You use the Scheduling tab for open pit or underground scheduling, which is also beyond the scope of this tutorial.
If a menu command is unavailable, it might be because the menu command is not available for the tab that is active. For example, to create a plan or a section, you start with 3D data and make the 2D plan or section from it. Therefore, you need to use the 3D Design tab (rather than the Drafting tab) when you start creating the plan or section.
The Minex Explorer is a window that shows files and folders in a similar way to Windows Explorer. You can quickly open files from the Minex Explorer, and perform other commands on those files. When you right-click a file, a menu displays the commands you can perform. This type of a menu is sometimes called a context menu.
A toolbar is a group of icon buttons. To see the name of the toolbar, move the pointer over the double lines to the left of the icon in the toolbar as shown in the following image of the Plot Modes toolbar.
Each string has an Editable property. When Editable is set to True, you can edit the string. When Editable is set to False, you cannot edit the string. Minex uses the Editable property to prevent you from changing some strings that you should not change manually.
The Output Window is the area that displays results of queries and reports. The example below shows the output from using the Query tool, and clicking on two strings that represent fences, to find the distance between them.
Minex displays all its graphical data (including geometry data, grids, triangles, plans, sections, and textured images) in Graphics. In the example below, Graphics displays a textured image (registered onto a triangulated file) and also some geometry data (fences and walls).
The 3D Design tab is active rather than the Drafting tab. When working with three-dimensional data you use the 3D Design tab. The Drafting tab is useful for working with two-dimensional data on plans and sections.
Geometry data has many uses. For example, you can convert survey data of an open pit to a triangulated surface to calculate the volume of waste and coal between the triangulated surface and the topography.
In Minex, you must store strings and points in a geometry file to work with them. Geometry files have the .GM3 extension. The following image shows a geometry file called THEDON.GM3 which is supplied with the Ashes data set.
A geometry file contains many different types of data, stored in a hierarchy. If you display all the geometry data in a file, Graphics might appear cluttered. When you understand the hierarchy and you display geometry data, you can choose the type of data you want to show and hide the rest.
The Minex data administrator at your site defines the groups, maps, and idents; they are not hardcoded in Minex. For example, the ident that you use for contours is not necessarily SCONTOUR; its name might be CONTOUR or a different name.
Masks Closed polygons representing lease boundaries, rehabilitated areas, or areas within which you want to report volume and tonnage. This is also useful for masking operations on triangles and grids.
In Minex, it is not critical that you assign each type of data to the data types as previously described. For example, in THEDON.GM3, most data has a data type of Structure regardless of its purpose. However, a few masking operations, such as String > Geometry Tools > Mask String Rename, require a string of data type Mask as input.
In Minex, to view a file, you must open it, and then display it (or display data within it). The way in which you open the file is very similar regardless of the type of file. However, the way in which you display the file, or data within it, differs depending on the file type.
To view data (such as geometry, grids, triangles, or boreholes) and work with it, the first thing you need to do is to open the data file. The quickest way to open a file is, with the Project tab active, right-click the file in the Minex Explorer, and select Open.
After you open a file, a red, blue, or black check mark appears beside the file. If it is a geometry file, you can choose to open it as a primary file (Open command), or as a secondary file (Open as Secondary command).
For example, surveyors might use one geometry file called survey.gm3 that they open, and use, as a primary file. The surveyors give survey.gm3 to the geologists. The geologists do most of their work in a separate geometry file called geology.gm3, which they open as a primary file. At the same time, the geologists open survey.gm3 as a secondary file, and use it to show read-only data.
By selecting Exclude, you have hidden the SCONTOUR strings in Graphics. This technique of hiding string data is particularly useful when you have many rows in the Geometry Display dialog box because it allows you to quickly show or hide the types of string you choose.
You can use the Object Control Panel to show or hide specific strings, triangles, grids, or other objects that are displayed in Graphics. The Object Control Panel is useful when you have several files, or strings, open at the same time and you want to see which one is which.
When you create or edit a string, or make any other changes or additions to a geometry file, you must save the geometry data file to keep the changes. When you try to exit Minex, and there are unsaved changes in the geometry file, Minex prompts you to save the file.
When you use the same dialog box repeatedly with the same, or similar, parameters, you can save time by saving the parameters and retrieving them each time you need to reuse them. This is particularly useful for dialog boxes with a large number of parameters.
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