We’ve seen how to make steps one at a time, but if you’re trying to set up a new model from your mine history that’s a lot of tedious work. Batch step generation gives us options to create many steps at a time. We just need a method to match dates to individual surveys or survey layers.
In the batch generation process, there are three different methods to associate mining dates with geometry:
- Attributes on surveys
- Dates in the survey names or folders
- CSV file containing survey names and dates (e.g. stope blast times)
- Nearby blasts from the blasts database
Option A - Dates from Survey Attributes
If your surveys have date attributes, for example in Deswik, then you can use these directly in the From Survey Attributes window.
Step 1 : Assess the date
- First, tick the surveys you want to use.
- Then tick the date attributes to use in the left.
- Optionally set a rounding on the dates, or filter the range which you want to use (e.g. if you only want to generate new steps since the last time you updated your model).
Step 2 : Set the resolution, type, and material of each steps
- When you are satisfied with the dates, go to the Create Steps window and set the resolution, type, material, and then click Generate All Steps (in the Create Steps panel).
Step 3 : Create the step
- Then go and do something else for a while as the steps generate.
Option B - Dates from Dated Surveys
Here is a walk-through example of ht whole batch-generating-process for dates linked from dates surveys
Step 1.1 : Assess the date (Dates from Survey Window)
- Go to the Build Steps -> Batch Generate Steps -> From Date Surveys window.
In this guide we will be using dates from survey names, so 2) Click on that window now and see the following screen.
- In this screen we have to specify patterns that tell the system how to read the mining dates from our survey file names. These patterns are entered into the Date Patterns table at the top of the screen.
The control panel on the left of the screen has detailed information about the different options available in the patterns.
If you already see information in the tables, then this option has previously been used with your root folder. You can continue following along with the next steps, but you may find that some points have already been completed for you.
- Tick the Edit option in the top-right of the table to enable editing.
- Then click and hold the Edit button, and select Insert one row from the drop-down menu. You should now see an empty row in the table.
- Double click the empty cell in the Date Pattern column to begin editing the cell.
- Write down the date pattern
In our example, surveys the mining date is written at the beginning of the filename with the year using four digits, then a dash, and then two digits for the month. We must include any other fixed parts of the filename that are between these components, in this case the dash. So our date pattern will be: (YYYY)-(MM)
The patterns use special placeholders to indicate where a component like the year or the month is found, in this case (YYYY) is the placeholder for a four-digit year, and (MM) is the placeholder for a two-digit month.
If your surveys are organised into folders, you can use a forward slash to indicate the folder structure. For example if you had folders for each year, and then folders for each month inside those, you could specify the pattern as: (YYYY)/(MM)
After you have entered your date pattern (ensure that you press the enter key when you have finished typing), you should see a list of surveys with matched dates in the bottom table.
- Verify the date intepreted: The Found Date column shows the mining date as it has been interpreted by the system. You can use this to verify that your date pattern is working correctly.
- If you want to check the names of all your surveys, for example to check for surveys which are not matching the date patterns, then you can untick the Only Show Surveys With Found Dates option in the control panel.
- If there are any dates which are invalid or that you do not want to include, you can untick the survey file in this table to remove it from the final list of dates.
If you have different kinds of date patterns used in different surveys, you can enter multiple rows in the Date Patterns table to specify each different kind of date pattern.
Step 1.2 : Assess the date (Set Survey Information Window)
When you have dates for all of the surveys that you want to use, continue by clicking on the Set Survey Information window.
In this window you will see all the survey files that have any mining dates associated with them. As we mentioned previously, there is another option that associates mining dates based on blast locations.
The option to associate mining dates based on blast location is enable automatically - untick it if you do not want to use it. To remove that option, click on the Date Controls panel on the left, and then untick the From Blast Locations option in the table in the panel:
In this panel you also have the option to round dates to the end of certain periods, e.g. to the end of the month or to the end of a quarter.
In this example, we do not want the option to associate date based on blast location and we are happy using our monthly dates, so we will not use the rounding options.
Click on the General Controls panel on the left. In this panel you can set the step resolution, the default step type, the default material type, and a step name/comment that will be applied to all of the steps.
Setting the step name is highly recommended as it will make it easier to manage your step library in the future.
In our example we have a mix of development surveys and stope surveys. We could process these separately to ensure that the types are correct, or we can edit the types for certain surveys in the Type column in the table.
To edit the type, ensure the Edit option is ticked in the top right of the table, and then double click the cell and enter the new type value. You can also copy and paste values in the cells using Control+C and Control+V, which is useful if you have multiple surveys to modify.
Step 2 : Create the step (Process Surveys Window)
When all of your survey information is correct, click on the Process Surveys window to continue.
Click the Batch Process button in the control panel on the left to begin the processing.
Now it’s time to leave the MGM app alone while it works. The table will show completed surveys in green, and the current survey that it is processing in yellow. You can let it run in the background while you use other mXrap apps or other programs. When it is finished, you should be able to see all of your new steps in the Step Viewer window.
Go to the "Generate Model" Window for the next step!