Blast Pattern Editor (BPE) Enhancements Coming Soon

The MineSight® Blast Pattern Editor (BPE) has undergone numerous enhancements and is scheduled to be released in MS3D v.4.50. Professionals who use the BPE will find the newly revised tool to be much more versatile, making blast pattern design and editing a simpler and more effective process.

This article will cover the basic functions of the BPE tool and provide some examples of shot design.

The BPE is an engineering tool used to design and edit blasthole patterns. Blasthole patterns can be created using a grid, by filling in a polygonal boundary, along a polyline, between two existing blastholes, or by simply clicking in the viewer. Triangular or rectangular patterns can be created by adjusting the offsets for rows and columns. Blastholes can be named and renamed with prefixes/suffixes and in various numerical orders. Patterns can have collars projected to surfaces or exact elevations and can have pegs created with any orientation and length, including variable lengths to a surface. Floor, trim, or ramp shots can be created and incomplete patterns can be filled in with these functions. Blasthole patterns can be imported as simple markers and can be exported in various formats.

The BPE interface consists of a blasthole table, pull-down menus, and a seven-page dialog. The interface and functions are briefly described below followed by an example.

The Blasthole Table

The blasthole table lists all the blastholes in the pattern in a spreadsheet format. It is initially sorted in the order the blastholes were created, but can be resorted at any time using the Sort function. All of the values in the blasthole table can be edited directly in the listing.

File Menu

The BPE can be closed either through the File menu or with the X button.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu is used for selecting, unselecting, deleting, adding, moving and sorting blastholes.

Grid Page

The Grid page enables the blasthole pattern designer to define the pattern grid. The Origin, Orientation, and Extent of the grid can be entered directly in the dialog or these values can be dynamically selected using

the mouse input button in the viewer.

The Grid page is also where the pattern density is set as grid Size with Column and Row Width, and where

patterns can be made rectangular (with zero offsets) or triangular (with a positive Offset for row or column).

The Numbering parameters enable the blasthole numbering to begin, and increment with, any given number. The numbering can be either standard row-by-row or zigzag with Up and back on rows. Lastly

the Clipping section enables the use of a clipping boundary to limit blasthole generation to be within a cut boundary.

Name Page

The Name page allows blastholes to have specialized naming conventions. The Name section allows prefixes and suffixes to be added up to 10 characters, including special characters such as #(number), *(asterisk), -(hyphen), and _(underscore). Blastholes may also receive an alpha prefix, a special prefix that denotes the current row. Also, blasthole numbers can Pad zeros up to a given number of digits.

Rename allows blastholes to be renamed to add any of the naming specifications defined above or to

simply be renamed according to their order in the table or grid. An Auto-increment option keeps track of the next available number so that duplicates do not get generated.

Adjust Page

The Adjust page is where most blasthole editing occurs. In order for a blasthole to be affected by any of the editing functions on this page they must be selected in the BPE. Blastholes can be selected/unselected in the

BPE in various ways. They may be selected directly from the table, from the viewer using the select button , or all can be selected or unselected using the right-click or Edit menus. Selected blastholes are highlighted both in the blasthole table and in the viewer.

The Adjust page has functions for projecting collars, setting or resetting blasthole length, or globally editing any value in the blasthole table. Project collars will project the collars of selected blastholes to either a surface (chosen from the viewer or through OCB), or to a given fixed elevation. Projecting collars to a surface is especially useful when mining out a ramp or irregular surface, and the collar elevations must coincide with that surface.

Set blasthole length allows three different methods for adding pegs to collars: Fixed length, Length to

surface (with optional underdrill or subdrill adjustment), and Length to fixed elevation.

Global edit allows any of the values in the blasthole table to be set globally.

Line Fill Page

The Line Fill page (shown on the next page) enables blastholes to be generated to fill in irregular areas, such as trim shots. Two fill methods are available, Between two blastholes and Along polyline. If filling Along polyline, pegs can be defined and created along with the collars.

The Numbering section on this page controls the numbering of these fill-in blastholes, and the naming specifics set on the Name page are also honored.

Blasthole generation method allows for the total number of blastholes created in the filling to be

controlled by either an End number (depending on the start number and increment in the Numbering section), or by Count, or Distance.

Verify Page

On the Verify page patterns can be verified and checked for spacing problems or naming inconsistencies. Blastholes must be selected in the BPE for these checks to be performed. When Preview is selected on this

page, the checks are performed and the results are highlighted in the viewer and listed in the Message Window.

Under Check Distance, tolerance values can be set to Check spacing of blastholes greater than, Check spacing of holes within, and Check bootleg holes within ranges.

In Blasthole Names verification, options include Check for duplicate names and Check for names

without bh numbers.

The Convert Preview to Selection button will convert the results of the checks to the current BPE

selection so that action may be taken to correct those problems.

Export Page

The Export page facilitates exporting selected blastholes to several different ASCII file formats: SRV (space delimited), SRG (comma delimited), Report, and CSV Report. Offsets can also be added to the X, Y, and Z coordinates.

Blastholes can also be exported as collar, survey, and assay files using the standard MineSight script Convert

Attributed Drillhole Design, attrtoascii.pyc. The script resides in the winexe/Scripts directory and can be executed from MineSight 3D File | Scripts | Run Script.

Options Page

The Options page (shown on the next page) has toggles to Check for duplicate names on close and Check for names without bh numbers on close. When these are on, the checks are performed each time

the BPE is closed and the results of the checks are noted in the Message Window. Also, on the Options page is where the designer can set user preferences for Preview label height, Preview marker size, and Selected bh marker size. Color Preferences (same as Viewer Preferences) can also be accessed from here.

The Sort BHs button launches the Sort page. Here either all blastholes or only selected blastholes can be

sorted in the table. This page can also be accessed through the menu Edit | Sort bhs.

Creating a Basic Pattern

To create a basic pattern, first a grid must be defined that covers the area entirely. Normally a polygonal cut boundary will also be utilized, which should be digitized prior to designing the pattern. Once the grid location, orientation and extent is defined, the size of the pattern grid should be entered. If no offsets are given for row or column, the resulting pattern will be rectangular. If an offset is given on either the row or column, the resulting pattern will be triangular.

The shot above was designed using clipping boundary, showing a rectangular layout using no offsets.

The shot abovedesigned using clipping boundary, showing a triangular layout with mid-distance offset.

The blasthole names are automatically visible during Preview but in order to see the blasthole labels once the pattern is applied, set the Object | Properties for Node Labels to show the Element Name of the nodes.

Once the layout is designed and the pattern is applied, the blastholes are listed in the table shown below.

But only the collars are created. The blastholes still need length. To add length, use the functions on the Adjust page described on page 8. In this example, the blastholes will get 15 ft length, down to the next bench as shown below.

When applied, the pegs are visible in the viewer and the lengths are reflected in the table below.

Mining Out an Existing Ramp

To create a pattern for mining out a ramp, a shot pattern with variable collar elevations is required. Begin by defining the grid, clipping with boundary, and creating blasthole collars. But then use the Adjust function Project Collars to project the collars down to the ramp surface.

Shot before projecting collars to ramp surface.

Shot after projecting collars to ramp surface.

Next, give these blastholes pegs using Length to fixed elevation on the Adjust page. Notice their variable collar elevations and lengths in the table.

Designing a New Ramp

To implement a new ramp, follow a similar process. Begin by creating a grid that covers the area, clipping with a boundary and creating the collars. Then give the blastholes length using the Adjust page function Length to surface.

Mining in a ramp, blastholes have a constant collar elevation with variable depths to the new ramp surface.

Once completed, the shot series looks like the screen capture below. It can now be exported using the options on the Export page or using a script.

For more information about the Blast Pattern Editor, see the User’s Guide for the tool or read the tutorial

Using the Blast Pattern Editor, all coming in MineSight® v.4.50.