Mincom, a leading global provider of software and services to asset-intensive industries, has released an upgrade to its market-leading suite of software for mine design and modelling. Further enhancing the industry’s most robust mine-planning solution, Mincom Minescape v5.2 now offers multi-language support including Russian, greater performance improvements to increase mine-planning speed, new design features, and enhancements that further increase usability.  “Mines are complex and dynamic environments, where significant value can be derived from the modelling and planning stages,” said John Jessop, Vice President of global mining solutions, Mincom. “For three decades, the world’s leading mining companies have trusted Mincom to help anticipate and resolve these challenges. With MineScape 5.2, we are in an even better position to help our global customers model complex mining operations, create more optimal mine plans and improve the bottom line.”To further support customers in the significant mining regions of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Mincom has released a Russian version of MineScape. Mincom MineScape 5.2 also features a new framework which delivers support for multiple other languages worldwide.

Additionally, the MineScape 5.2 release introduces four new plug-ins:

• Haulage Roads, which guides engineers through the process of planning mine-haulage roads and dragline paths. Complex road designs can be completed in minutes, allowing engineers to compare multiple design concepts, including horizontal and vertical alignment and cut-and-fill volumes
• Ring Design, which provides an interactive, 3D Computer Aided Design environment from which users can perform underground ring drill mine design and blasting. Rich visualisation and design tools enable users to take into consideration both planned and prior mining at different levels, and generate complex underground mine designs within minutes
• Underground Survey is specifically designed for underground surveying, which provides storage, management and processing of large quantities of survey-point data, as well as standard survey and orthogonal measurements. The 3D CAD visualisation tools enable users to view any selection of survey points and measurements stored in the database, with the capability of drawing schematic drives for which orthogonal measurements exist
• Schedule 3D is an extension of the MineScape Schedule tool, which provides 3D visualization of mining blocks. Typically used for underground mine scheduling, Schedule 3D enables users to create, visualize and select designed underground stoping blocks, giving engineers a clear understanding of the scheduling steps, thus streamlining the process.

Mincom MineScape 5.2 features other new enhancements, including the ability to integrate third-party plug-ins, new CAD dimension and measuring tools, improvements in plotting capabilities to make design time faster and more intuitive, and support for Microsoft Windows XP/7 64-bit operating systems.

“Mine planners and schedulers must account for a staggering array of variables – such as geological samples and data from the mine, production capacity, available equipment, commodity prices, product cost assumptions and worker health and safety – so that customer demands can be met on time and on budget,” said Bill Wilkinson, MineScape Product Manager, Mincom. “With new plug-ins for haulage road, ring design, underground surveying and 3D scheduling, this latest version of Mincom MineScape enables mining organisations to meet the most significant challenges in mine planning and scheduling more effectively than ever before, optimizing production from mine to market.”  

Relied upon by hundreds of leading mining organizations around the world, Mincom MineScape is a powerful suite of integrated solutions delivering extensive geologic-modeling and mine-design functionality for open cut and underground mining operations for coal and metalliferous deposits. MineScape is the mine planning component of the Mincom Intelligent Mining Solution (IMS) suite, which provides a comprehensive set of technical mining solutions spanning the entire spectrum of mining processes, from exploration to final product sales.