Geovariances has announced the launch of Minestis, its brand new software solution dedicated to mineral resource estimation. Minestis offers “a fast and easy-to-use workflow for domain estimation and mineral resource modeling through a simplified and secure geostatistics-based approach.”
“When designing Minestis, our main objectives were: firstly, to offer our customers a new generation mining-focused software solution that non-experts in geostatistics can learn and implement easily; secondly, that this new software ensures the quality and the performances of the geostatistics our leading software Isatis is renowned and referenced for”, Geovariances Software Development Manager François Geffroy says. “As a result, Minestis simplifies resource estimation and quickly delivers reliable estimates.”
Minestis provides a workflow which takes the user through every step of its resource modelling project. The software starts with the loading of already built grade shells or geological surfaces and verifies that geological domains are coherent with each other. It goes on with a geostatistics-based estimation process which gives users access to the only parameters they need to control through a smart user interface. It quickly ends up with the production of the recoverable resource figures required for subsequent resource classification.
Minestis implements powerful parallelised geostatistical algorithms: kriging, conditional simulations, uniform conditioning and localised uniform conditioning. Additional tools such as automatic variogram fitting or kriging neighborhood analysis, combined with a modern interface, facilitate software use and parameter setting. Early users also reported that Minestis is fast and visual.
“The strength of Minestis is that it manages the estimation of geological domains and block models in a coherent way, thus ensuring the quality of resulting estimates”, Geovariances Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Nicolas Jeannée indicates. “Another strength is that Minestis also makes the recommended advanced resource evaluation techniques like conditional simulations or uniform conditioning easy to implement by non-experts in geostatistics. This means users hold all the assets to get the resource figures expected by their company.”
And for advanced optional functionalities, Minestis can be advantageously complemented by Isatis through a dedicated link. For the companies which have sponsored the related research program, Minestis enables innovative implicit domain modelling directly from borehole data. It also enables uncertainty assessment on the domain envelopes, which is unique among mining packages. Domain modelling will be publicly released in 2016.