MineSight in the Foreground

Setup for Autoslicer in MineSight Interactive Planner

If you want to use the AutoSlicer Tool in MineSight Interactive Planner (IP) to create cuts targeted on
reserve tonnage, there are setup options available on the Materials tab page dialog that you can use to select
the cutoff bins used to sum. This article reviews the Material Sets dialog with respect to the AutoSlicer options
and shows the results after using the AutoSlicer to create cuts targeted on reserves.

Figure 1. Material Sets tab page dialog in the MineSight IP Tool set up. These views are of the same dialog and setup, but one has the Show
AutoSlicer Setup toggled ON (circled in red) and the other does not. The view on the right has the Show AutoSlicer Setup toggled ON; notice
the blue columns with checkboxes adjacent to each of the cutoff bins, as well as the helpful information at the bottom of the dialog, on the right.

Using the AutoSlicer Setup, you can control which cutoff bins you want the AutoSlicer to sum in order to
reach the target value. By default, all cutoffs and zones will be used. To control which cutoff bins are used to
achieve the target, on the Material Sets tab page dialog in IP, toggle ON the Show AutoSlicer Setup (as shown
in Figure 1). Then you can toggle ON/OFF individual cutoffs that are to be used for accumulation, or you can
select or unselect globally (Select All/Unselect All). To use the global options, click into one of the blue columns
of toggles located adjacent to individual cutoff bins and click-right. An options setup menu will be displayed
(as shown in Figure 2). This right-click menu allows you to globally control which toggles are selected (or
unselected), either all, or by column or row. It also allows you to add, insert, or move zones on the dialog.
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Figure 2. Options setup menu.

Using the setup shown in Figure 1, the AutoSlicer will be used to design cuts targeting on reserve tonnage,
only for ore (high, medium, and low grades) in this example. Notice that the waste category is toggled OFF on
the Materials Sets tab page dialog. In this case, material in the waste category will not be considered by the
AutoSlicer as the cuts are created.
Once the Area and Material Sets have been set up and saved, click on the Design Cuts button in the IP
Tool dialog. Once in the IP Cut Design dialog, click on the AutoSlicer icon to display the AutoSlicer tool
dialog. In this example, a previously created polygon that could represent a layback between two pit phases is
used (Figure 3).

Figure 3. This figure shows the Main tab page dialog in the AutoSlicer tool, and the viewer showing the layback (yellow polygon) in which we
want to create cuts, plus the model view displayed at the working level (2510). The pink line will be the lead line used by the AutoSlicer. Note: in
IP, the Target object is ignored because the cuts created by the AutoSlicer are saved to the Plan.

Going through the AutoSlicer tool setup panels, we are targeting on reserves using a target of 10,000 tonnes
for each of the cuts in this layback (Target tab), the direction is along the lead line (Direction tab), and the new
cuts will be names using the original element name, counted using an increment of 1, and including the plane
number (2510) (Naming tab), as shown in Figure 4.
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Figure 4. This figure shows three of the four AutoSlicer tab dialogs. Note: on the Naming tab dialog the Material name is the same as a slice
name is ignored in IP.

Click on Preview to first create the slices, followed by Apply to save them to the IP plan (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Shows cuts created by the AutoSlicer in the IP Tool within a layback, targeted on reserves. The first cut, named Region 1.1.00. is
located in the upper-right portion of these pictures.

Open the first cut (Region 1.1.00.) and run the script, ip-accum.py. It
will report the cut reserves to the screen, as shown in Figure 6. Per the setup
on the Material Sets tab, the reserves are binned by the cutoffs selected. As
shown in Figure 6, there are 4,141 tons of high grade, 0 tonnes of medium
grade, and 5,859 tonnes of low grade, for a total ore tonnage of 10,000
tonnes, which matches the target tonnage specified in the AutoSlicer setup
(Target tab, Figure 4). Note: there are 5,710 tonnes of waste in this cut. Since
it was excluded from consideration, any waste tonnage was not included in
the target tonnage, just the ore tonnage.

Figure 6. Shows cut reserves for the cut Region 1.1.00. as calculated using the script,
ip-accum.py.

August 2004