Site Configuration Options

The site configuration menu allows administrators to configure the system-wide behaviour of MaterialMRT, from system attributes to various metrics and other global properties.

Site Parameters

This page allows you to adjust the attributes of the mine and the behaviour of its materials, as follows:

Global

Cuboid Length and Width: A cuboid is a block used for modelling stockpiles. It is similar to a conventional block-model block, except that its height varies by the quantity of material within the cuboid base. To set the length and width of the cuboid, enter its value in this field.

Note:  Cuboid length and width can only be changed if no materials have yet been modelled in the system.

Typical Material Density

The typical material density can be set in this section. Typical materials can be categorised as non-specific material such as waste or run-of-mine (ROM) material. In here, you can do the following:

  • Click Add material to add a material, then enter a Material name and Density value for the new material.
  • Click Remove materialto remove materials.

Zone Category

Zone categories allow you to determine whether a zone has a static or dynamic boundary. Use the checkboxes to enable or disable static boundaries.

Rule

Rules are scripts (TypeScript) used to validate data associated with the movement of material. Choose which rules are enabled for MaterialMRT to use. Grey checkboxes indicate mandatory rules.

Cuboid Stack Modeller

The cuboid stack modeller adjusts the behaviour of material that is added or removed from a stockpile. The settings are as follows:

Note:   Changing these settings may affect system performance.

  • Angle of Repose - Dump: The angle used to shape stockpiles when material is deposited into a stockpile.

  • Angle of Repose - Load: This applies to the ability of material to maintain a steeper shape when settled. This angle is typically higher than Angle of Repose - Dump.

  • Build - Horizontal Search Radius: The horizontal distance from a dump point in which to search for stacks and ground points.

  • Build - Extended Horizontal Search Radius: The horizontal distance used when extending the search area for nearby stacks.

  • Reclaim - Horizontal Search Radius: The horizontal distance used when a trip reclaims material. Essentially an upper bound on how far a loader would travel from stockpile to truck.

Stockpile Boundary Modeller

The stockpile boundary modeller allows you to adjust the vertical modelling behaviour around a stockpile. The settings are as follows:

  • Date Time Format: Enter a valid date-time string as a suffix of the stockpile name. A valid Microsoft .NET custom specifier must be used.

  • Maximum Significant Vertical Decimal Places: Enter the value for maximum significant decimal places allowed.

  • Maximum Cuboid Stack Height: Enter the minimum height to consider in the modelling process.

  • Minimum Merge Distance: Sets the minimum distance for the modeller to automatically merge nearby dynamic stockpiles.

  • Stockpile Vertical Search Distance: Sets the minimum distance in diagonal.

  • Stockpile Boundary Vertical Offset Above Surface: Sets how far the stockpile boundary line will display above the surface.

  • Stockpile Vertical Offset Search Height: Sets the minimum surface stack height to adjust the vertical offset display above the surface.

  • Convention by: Sets the way for naming stockpiles when they land in a Stockpile Zone. You can choose either String Property or Zone. If String Property is used, select a string property from its drop-down list.

Domain Event Dispatcher

The domain event dispatcher allows you to set the threshold of the number of events logged before they are dispatched to the system, and the lag time before a replay is triggered. The settings are as follows:

To change the values for H, M, and S (hours, minutes, and seconds), you can enter the value directly into each field, or use the Click this button to increase the value in the H, M, and S fields and Click this button to decrease the value in the H, M, and S fields buttons to increase or decrease the current value.

Stockpiling

Stockpiling allows you to set the age waste dump material reaches before being archived. Select any of the following:

  • None: No action occurs.
  • Remove By Age: Set the maximum age of the material that is modelled in waste dumps. When material reaches this age, it is archived.
  • Consolidate Vertically: All cuboids in the stack are weight-averaged into a single cuboid per stack.
  • Consolidate By Material Property: Matching properties in adjacent cuboids are combined and assigned a weight-averaged value.

Preferences

This page allows an administrator to define the technical and operational characteristics of the mine site. Click on a preference category on the side bar to view and edit its settings, as follows:

Site Metadata

Site metadata identifies the MaterialMRT website instance, and can synchronise schedules with Evolution Epoch. The settings in this tab include the following:

  • Code: Identifies the MaterialMRT instance. This is usually a three letter acronym.
  • Name: The name of the mine or site.
  • Operation: Type of operation, such as surface ROM or post plant, etc.

CRS and Local Transformations

Control how your terrain coordinate data is mapped. The parameters are as follows:

  • PROJ String: Defines the local mine grid using PROJ4 or PROJ6 formatting.
  • Local Transformations: Adjusts the origin, horizontal, vertical translation and rotation to modify the CRS PROJ String. Use a -1 factor to convert negative coordinates into positive values where required.
  • Test Coordinate Conversion: Configures the geographic coordinates to received converted local grid coordinates using the current PROJ String value.

Units

Set standard units for all metrics. Click the drop-down arrow to expand and choose the required unit of measure.

Stockpile Status

Choose the colour for undefined materials using the colour picker.

Cesium Default Viewer Assets

Add or remove viewer terrain (assets). Click Add viewer asset to add a new viewer asset and enter required information in the following fields:

  • ID: Type in the Id value that MaterialMRT can reference.
  • Name: Type in the name that users can identify with.
  • Delete a viewer asset: Click Delete viewer asset next to the chosen asset to delete that viewer asset.

Zone Categories

Review and manage the zone categories that are listed in this panel. Information is divided into the following columns:

  • ID: The name of the zone category used by MaterialMRT.
  • Display Name: An alternate (custom) name or use the existing ID.
  • Is Available: Use the checkbox to enable or disable allocation of this zone type.
  • Is Navigable: Use the checkbox to enable or disable that zone’s visibility in the viewer.

Region

Enter your language and regional settings in this tab. The following fields apply:

  • Culture: Enter the language for the operating region. e.g. en-AU (Australian English).
  • Time Zone: Enter the regional time zone in which the mine operates. e.g. Australia/Broken_Hill.

Tip:  For each of the above, begin typing a keyword to narrow the search. For example, if you type “US” into the Culture field, matches such as chr-US, en-US appear. You can do the same to find the correct Time Zone. Alternatively, open the entire list by clicking in any of these fields while it is blank.

Shift Calendars

Select the shift regime used at the site. Use the drop-down list and select the appropriate shift calendar. A shift schedule includes the Name (such as night shift), the Start, and End time of each shift.

Viewer

Use Viewer to control the amount of padding around the extents of all the combined zones. The unpadded extents will be a rectangle that is sized to fit the outermost extents of zones within the terrain. To best see this effect, configure any viewer using the following settings:

Example

The following example shows the white boundary conforming to the yellow zone boundaries when they have no padding.

To set padding uniformly, do the following:

  1. Select the Use Zones with padding as terrain extent checkbox.
  2. Enter a value for Terrain Extent Padding.
  3. Click Click the Update button to save your settings.
Example

The padding between the yellow zone borders and the white extents border. In this example, the padding value is 200 m.

You can also define explicit minimum and maximum x- and y-axis (mine grid) coordinates, as follows:

  1. Disable Use Zones with padding as Terrain Extent checkbox.
  2. Enter values for X Min, Y Min, X Max, and Y Max.
Example

Note the padding effect (particularly the vertical extents when custom settings are applied:

To save your settings, click Click the Update button to save your settings.

Built-in Metric Colouring

Manage the colour schemes for the following metrics. The following default metrics are available:

  • Point by height
  • Point by movements
  • Stockpile by mass
  • Stockpile by movements
  • Zone Capacity
  • Absolute deviation of lab results from outflows
  • Deviation of lab results from outflows

Metrics can also be customised as needed.

  • Click customise to open the customise colour map editor to modify an existing colour map assigned to a metric.
  • Click the From library button to choose a pre-made colour map and customise it.

Material Properties

The Material Properties Schema contains the list of properties with its related values presented as a table, and the property editor, as illustrated. The table includes the property name, its type, and sources referenced with each property.

You can add new properties or select an existing property to modify or delete from the material properties schema.

Adding a new material property

To add a property, click add itemat the top-right corner of the list pane. A new form; New Material Property will open in the property editor. Enter the following information by following these steps:

Note:  Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

  1. Open the Type drop-down to select from the available options. To learn more about property types, refer to the Property types table.

  2. Select the Is trip only checkbox if the property is not intended to carry through to cuboid stacks, stockpiles, or outflows. The information is only retained in the trip and can be used in downstream reporting systems.

  3. In the Name field, enter the property’s name.

  4. In the Description field enter a description for this property, if required.

  5. Click in the Tags field to add or select an existing descriptor, if required.

  6. Open the Measure drop-down and select the appropriate metric.

  7. Open the Display Unit drop-down and select the appropriate unit, if required.

  8. In the Sources section, click Add Source to open the drop-down and select a source. Repeat this step as required to add more sources.

  9. Under each source (From FMS, etc), enter the Source System Key as named by the source.

    Example

    Different sources may have different naming variants from the source system key such as a7, a-7, or ash7 etc.

    Note:  To correctly map a property to its source system, ensure the source system key exactly matches the source name

  10. In the Value Ranges section, click the Add value range icon to enter the Acceptable, Marginal, and Unacceptable value ranges. Repeat this step to include additional value ranges as required.

  11. In the Colour Map section, add a colour map to use as the legend, if one is required. Click Customise to open the Customise Colour Map editor. Here, you can select your colours, value increments, and visual styles.

    Alternatively, click From Library to open a list of pre-made colour maps. Select one to use and modify as required. Click OK to save.

  1. Click Create to save the created property.

Managing existing properties

To remove a property from Material Properties Schema, follow these steps:

  1. Select the property from the list

  2. On the editor pane, scroll down to and click Delete. A confirmation dialog will open with the following warning, as illustrated.

  1. Click Delete to confirm your choice. The selected property will be removed from the list.

To modify an existing property, follow these steps:

  1. Select the property from the list.

  2. In the property editor, select the attribute to modify or delete

    • Enter or edit attribute values as needed.
    • Click Bin next to an attribute you want to delete.
  1. Click Update to save your changes.

Property types table

Numeric properties

They are labels with a numeric value that include the following:

  • Type of measure (such as length, mass, density etc.)
  • Storage and display unit
  • Value ranges with upper and lower bounds.

Text

These are labels or character strings that contain one or more child values. The combined proportions of these child values equate to 100% .

Lists

These are labels or character strings with one or more child values in the form of a simple list of labels.

Time

This property is a label with an associated Date-Time value. These values are often described in the system as a duration from the Date-Time value to the current time.

Default system properties

The following properties are built into MaterialMRT:

Trips: A trip lists the trip keys/IDs that are associated with a parcel of material.

Note:  Once there are more than 5 trips in this list it is emptied as tracking the material this way becomes more speculative.

Movements: A movement tracks how many times a parcel of material has been relocated.

1 movement from pit to ROM stockpiles, 2 movements then from ROM stockpile to sink.

Disturbed: This is a time stamp for material when it was first loaded from the pit or stockpile.

Tip Status: This is associated with the Dump Location Validation typescript rule. It can be any text value defined by the rule.

Resource Model Explorer

The Resource Model Explorer is an administrative tool that displays and lists grade control and geological block models. The page includes a viewer to display block models and three tabs that allow you to explore, import, and manage models. To open the resource model explorer click in the system bar and select Reource Model Explorer.

Viewing blocks and their properties

The viewer displays the following features, depending on the type of block model selected, as follows:

  • Grade control models are within an area surrounded by a cyan border. The blocks appear at the level of the terrain, as illustrated. They are displayed in the colour scheme of the selected property.

  • Geological blocks are within an area surrounded by a light green border. They appear as stacked blocks below the level of the terrain, as illustrated. Geological blocks are also displayed in the colour scheme of the preferred property.  

    Note

    To show geological blocks after selecting a model from the Property value drop-down, click Select Area and create a polygon over the area you want to select, then click complete polygon. Geological blocks within the polygon will be displayed, and their details listed in the adjacent table. The blocks are defined by their Block ID, Centroid (position), Size, and Properties.

    • Click on a block in the viewer to locate it in the table. The opposite can be done; however, it may be difficult to locate blocks if they are obscured by others.

    • Click the centroid pin (Centroid pin) to open a separate viewer page showing the location of the pin.

  • Use the viewer to find information about any block.

    • Adjust the viewing angle to locate and select a block with the mouse, particularly for geological blocks that can contain many stacked layers. The selected block will be highlighted in the resource model's table when the Editor tab is selected.

    • Expand the Property value drop-down to display blocks in the colour scheme of that property.

    • For grade control blocks, apply bandpass filtering by adjusting the Min and Max fields. Blocks outside the bandpass range will not be displayed. See the following examples for comparison:

    • Click on a block to view a statistical tooltip. As soon as you move the mouse away, the tooltip will disappear.

Using the Explore tab

The Explore tab allows you to review listed block contents and quickly query their contents. When exploring grade control blocks, additional tools are available. Select a model, using the Resource Models drop-down. The way blocks are displayed depends on the type selected, as follows:

  • The viewer will display the blocks framed within a cyan boundary if grade control blocks are selected.

  • The viewer will not display any blocks initially, only a green-bordered area that indicates where geological blocks can be queried.

Once a resource model has been selected, a table containing all the blocks and their statistics will be populated in the Explore tab.

  • For grade control blocks, use the Search Name field if you want to filter down items or find a specific one.

  • Hover over a specific row in the table to find that block in the viewer. Conversely, click on a block in the viewer to find it in the table.

  • Hover over an item in the Properties column in the table to display a tooltip listing the properties in the block and their amounts.

  • Click (Edit properties) to open the properties editor to modify the attributes of selected grade control blocks.

  • Click Delete model button (Delete) to remove a block from the table, when prompted to confirm the action, click Delete.

Using the Import tab

The Import tab has tools to enable you to import geological or grade control blocks. Geological blocks are contained within CSV or ZIP files. Grade control files require a CSV file with accompanying DXF or OBJ blocks, and the filenames of both must be identical.

To import the block models, follow these steps:

  1. Click Click this button to open the add new model form to open its form.

  2. In the Model Name text field, type in a name for the model.

  3. Open the Type drop-down and select the type of model to import.

  4. Complete the remaining fields for Owner, Version, and Priority.

  5. Optionally, enable the Is Active checkbox for the model to be included in typescript queries that call for models flagged as active.

  6. Select the files to import:

    • Click inside the drop-zone to open a file manager instance and select files.
    • Or

    • Drop files directly into the drop-zone.
    • Imported files will appear as tiles in the drop-zone.

      • Click Remove file to remove unwanted files in the drop-zone.

      • Click Clear all to clear all files from the drop-zone.

  7. To finalise the import, click .

Using the Manage tab

The Manage tab consists of a table listing models currently in the system. It includes columns for the requested attributes when adding new models, namely Type, Owner, Version, Priority, and Active. The Item Count column indicates the quantity of blocks.

  • Change values in any column, except Type and Item Count by entering a new value into that cell. To save your changes, click tick button.

  • Click Edit button to enable editing a model's attributes.

  • Use the checkbox to decide which models should be active. If the state is changed, click tick button to save it.

    Note:  When a model is not flagged as active it will be excluded from queries (such as certain typescript rules) that specify active models.

  • Delete a model (and its associated blocks). Click Delete model button, when the confirmation dialog appears, click Delete reserve model confirmation.

Rules Editor

The rules editor allows the creation and management of typescripts. The typescripts used are called rules which enable the use of automations to perform data queries, evaluations, and validations based on specific system or material properties. To open the Rules Editor page, click to open the menu, then select .

The Rules editor is arranged as illustrated below.

Selecting a rule to edit

MaterialMRT includes the following standard rules:

 

Trip Validation

The rule is run when viewing trips on the Trip Editor page. This script performs the following functions:

  • Takes the current haul truck trip
  • Outputs a list of validation results models

If trips return error or warning validation results, the applicable column is coloured in red or orange respectively.

Payload Auto Correction

This script applies this rule to all selected trips in the trip editor. It automatically corrects the payload mass to the expected payload mass of the named truck.

If the truck name does not match, an error is returned to indicate the payload mass can’t be corrected automatically.

Trip Auto Correction

This rule is run every time a truck trip is processed. It is able to modify any value available on the HaulTruckTrip model used by the rule. It also has access to various application program interface (API) methods to query related zones, stockpiles, and block models.

Resource Model Property Setter

This rule is run by the engine every time a truck trip is processed. This rule is used when selecting a grade control or geological model block to associate with a load event of a truck.

Dump Location Validation

This rule is associated with the Tip Status material property. It is run every time a trip is processed and determines if the material was deposited in the correct location.

Editing scripts

The following steps are recommended when you edit typescript:

  1. Make the required changes to your script.

  2. Test your script in the Testing panel.

    Note:  An error message will be displayed if an attempt to save the script is carried out before testing.

  3. When the script is successfully validated, click .

Tip:  To use a dark or light theme for the editor, click Settings cog ( Editor Settings) and use the radio buttons to select either scheme.

Zone Maintenance

Zone Maintenance allows you to manage and import zones derived from a kml, json, or dxf file. To open the zone maintenance page, expand the site configuration menu (Site configuration menu) and select Click on the zone maintenace button to open its page. The page is arranged with a tabbed panel that enables you to manage and import zones, and the viewer to display these zones over the terrain.

Managing zones

The Manage tab works interactively with the viewer. Select the Manage tab to view the table which is organised by the (zone) Name and Category.

  • Click on a listed zone in the table to select it. Additional information will be displayed in the adjacent editable panel. The zone will be highlighted and centred in the viewer. The equivalent is also true if you click on an unselected zone inside the viewer.

    To show stockpile boundaries in the viewer, enable the Show Stockpile Boundaries toggle.

  • Enter a keyword in the Search Name text field to find specific zones or subsets sharing similar names.

  • Change the sort order of either column by clicking on its header.

  • Add new zones using the polygon tool and manually entering the required values.

  • Delete obsolete zones. Select the unwanted zone from the table, then click Delete. A warning dialog will appear to confirm your request.

Importing zones

The Import tab enables you to import zones in bulk. You can select any combination of KML, JSON, or DXF files and drop them directly into the drop-zone, or click on it to navigate to your source files. The steps involved are as follows:

  1. From the File Units drop-down, select the preferred unit to apply to the zones to be imported, if required.

  2. Select Prefer terrain scan z-coordinates to use them instead the existing zone elevation data (if included with the source files).

  3. Choose the following ways to import a file (supported file types are KML, JSON, and DXF.):

     

    • Drag a file into the drop-zone below the zone editor.

      or

    • Click in the drop-zone to open an explorer box and navigate to your source.

      The added files will appear as tiles in the drop-zone and be added to a table below it.

    • Click Remove file in any tile in the drop-zone to remove it. It will also be removed from the table.

    • Click to remove all files from the drop-zone and table.

  4. Use the check boxes to select which zones to include, by default, all zones will be selected.

    Tip:  If you have many zones in your list, consider using Search Zones to filter the list.

  5. In the Category column, allocate a zone category using the drop-down. All zones must have a zone category allocated to it.

  6. In the Capacity column, enter the capacity (tonnage) expected to be in each zone.

  7. Click Import Selected to complete the import.

    To view the newly imported files, select the Manage tab.

Exporting all Zones

You can export all zones to a file in the units of measure you have set. Simply click the Export All button and select your preferred file format (KML, JSON, or DXF) from the drop-down. A file is created with no further prompt and saved in your default download directory as <Site Code>.zones.xxx.

Example

The following is exported as a JSON file DEMO.zones.json

where:

  • DEMO is the site code.

  • .zones identifies this file as zone data.

  • .json is the output format selected by the user.