Pittsburgh-based Mine Vision Systems (MVS) has announced the release of its FaceCapture™ mapping system to optimise decision predictability at the mine face. It has also signed a contract with silver mining major Hecla Mining Co for the use of FaceCapture at its mining operations, including at its flagship Lucky Friday silver-lead-zinc mine in Idaho. Hecla has its HQ in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and in addition to Lucky Friday operates the Greens Creek silver-gold-lead-zinc mine on Admiralty Island, Alaska and the Casa Berardi gold mine in Quebec, Canada.

FaceCapture MVS says provides real-time insights at a level of precision not previously available while simultaneously reducing the geologist’s time at the face by over 80%. “Our engineering efforts have been focused on building a system that delivers the right information at the right time without disruption to existing processes,” said Scott Thayer, MVS’s Chief Strategy Officer. “FaceCapture integrates geo-referenced 3D point cloud and high-resolution images into 3D meshes that can be imported into mine plans through industry standard file formats, providing real-time information to geologists to help them make the decisions they were trained to make.”  The system is based on the use of visual and LiDAR-based Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms.

“FaceCapture empowers our customers to easily standardise on 3D data by adapting to existing surveying, geological, and geotechnical mapping workflows across the enterprise. We are grateful for the collaboration we have received from many of those customers to deliver this transformational product,” said Mike Smocer, MVS’s CEO. MVS says it will be showcasing the FaceCapture mapping system at the MINEXCHANGE 2023 SME Annual Conference being held in Denver, Colorado from February 26 through March 1.