Hexagon Mining has released a significant upgrade to MineSight Schedule Optimizer, (MSSO) a product for short, medium, and long-term planning. MineSight is Hexagon Mining’s comprehensive modelling and mine planning software platform. The versatile MSSO determines the most productive cut mining sequence to achieve the highest project profitability, and then generates practical schedules. Version 9 of MSSO simplifies planning by introducing a streamlined workflow for project set-up. It includes the ability to select MineSight Reserve logic, import mining cuts from MineSight 3D or MineSight Planner, add haul route details, and import and sequence destination geometry.

These features – many of them developed in response to client requests – allow you to accurately simulate your mine environment more closely to reality, and produce better, more accurate results.

Version 9 lets you select solid or polygonal cut geometry, or create the cuts in the MineSight 3D viewer, when creating a mining area in MSSO. Create smaller cuts simultaneously during the cut import process, by selecting MineSight’s Autoslicer Tool. Once cuts are imported into MSSO, and the reserve logic is specified, tons and grade information is calculated and stored inside the MSSO configuration file.

Additional improvements include faster multi-period scheduling, allowing you to obtain a solution more quickly; plus the ability to calculate cycle times with a smoother, more focused workflow.

Create mining cuts using MineSight Planner is also popular because it allows you to target and immediately report tonnes and grades using customisable reporting. MineSight Planner, which calculates reserves and generates plans, offers a centralized, controllable location to house cuts and share among users.

Hexagon Mining has also released Point Cloud Data, one of several new features in the 2015 Update DVD for clients using its MineSight mine planning products. Point Cloud Data allows you to import and display hundreds of millions of points, and view the result in RGB colour or gray scale. Using the recent addition of xViewer, which is able to load and display data simultaneously, you can display hundreds of millions of point data quickly and effortlessly alongside other MineSight data. The recently released Point Cloud Mesher allows you to generate surfaces and solids directly from Point Cloud Data.

The picture shows an example of an open pit coloured by elevation, courtesy of Fugro Spatial Solutions

“The sky’s the limit for displaying Point Cloud Data,” says EVP Technology and Innovation, Glenn Wylde. “You can use RGB values to display an impressive amount of detail captured from any of your scanning technology. “It’s another example of how we’re leveraging Hexagon technology to connect the real world with the digital world, bringing mining customers closer to reality.”

To handle calculations for block models, surface models, and gridded seam models, the new Model Calculation Tool is also on the DVD, delivering multiple model access, test runs (without saving to the model), and detail reporting.