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You are here: Menu Commands > Design > Stope design tools > Start Stope Design
GEOVIA Surpac

Start Stope Design

You use this function to start the process of creating a mineable stope from closed polygons and planes, and either a block model or an existing solid that represents an ore body. The Stope Design Workflow topic shows an overall workflow.

Prerequisites: To successfully design a stope, you need a block model or a solid representing an ore body, and a set of planes in the area of the stope.

To run this function: Choose Design > Stope Design tools > Start Stope Designer project, or...

  • In the Function Chooser, type INIT STOPE, and press ENTER.
Fields on the Start Stope Designer project form, Project definition tab

Field Description
Project name

The name of the stope design project file. This is an .sdproj file. It stores the parameters of the stope design project, which you can set by running INIT STOPE or STOPE PROJECT EDIT.

Project name is also the name of the .swa file that is created when you save the stope design project.

Tip: If you have run STOPE PROJECT EDIT and you change the Project name, you will create a new .sdproj file.
Planes group

The planes group that contains the planes you will use for stope design.
Created design object
Extrude using
  • start and end planes: When the design stope is created, the stope extends to the edges of the corridors of the Start plane and the End plane that you selected.
  • planes containing digitised polygons: When the design stope is created, the stope extends to the edges of the corridors of the planes on which you digitised polygons.
Start plane The first plane on which to digitise a polygon - that is, the plane you will use when starting to create the stope.
End plane The plane at the other end of the stope. This field is available only if you selected start and end planes.
Object ID The object number of the design object - that is the solid that you will create when you run STOPE OBJECT CREATE.
Name The file name of the design object.
Colour The colour of the design object.
Working layer The name of the layer to hold the polygons you create. To create a new layer, type a new name.
Ore body orientation for polygonal evaluation

The projection direction of the polygon is perpendicular to the plane unless a Dip and Dip direction is set

Dip A positive Dip makes the projection slope upwards from a position perpendicular to the plane. A negative Dip makes the projection slope downwards.
Dip direction The number of decimal degrees of rotation of the slope, in a clockwise direction, where 0 is orthogonal to the defined plane.
Report Settings
Report filename

The name of the stope design report, which is created at the same time as the design object.
Format The file format of the report.

On the Block Model tab you can specify a block model that provides input to stope design so that you can see details such as grade and contained metal of each part of the stope you are creating.

Fields on the Start Stope Designer project form, Block Model tab

Field Description
Evaluate using block model Allows you to use the attributes in an open block model to provide grade and density for the stope slicing report.
Block model The block model you want to use to provide data for the stope.
Specific gravity by
  • attribute. The density value is taken from the attribute defined in the Attribute field.
  • value. A constant value for the density is taken from the Value field.
Attribute The attribute, in the block model, that stores density.
Replace negatives with Any negative value in the density attribute in the block model, is replaced by the Replace negatives with value. For example, if you have some air blocks, in the model, that currently have a negative density, you might use a Replace negatives with value of 0.
Value The density of the blocks in the block model. You use either Value or Attribute. You cannot use both fields.
Use partial percentages
  • Selected: Stope design uses sub-blocking to include data from blocks that are partially within the object you are working with, but whose centroids are outside the object.
  • Cleared: Stope design includes data from blocks only if the block centroids are contained within the object you are working with.
Precision The number of times each block is split into 8 subblocks. Precision level 1 means that Surpac splits each block into 8 when sub-blocking. Precision level 2 means that each of the first 8 subblocks is split into 8 more subblocks, giving 64 subblocks. The sub-blocks that are within the stope provide their data to the stope design report.
Ore/rock type attribute for classification

This optional field allows you to specify an attribute that indicates whether a block is ore or waste. The stope design report then shows how much ore, and how much waste, is in each stope.

The attribute must have a type of character, integer, or be a calculated attribute that evaluates to a character or integer.
Attributes The attribute that stores the resource grade. You can add additional rows for each additional resource of interest.
Contained metal factor A number that is multiplied by the grade when the stope design report is produced. Usually Contained metal factor is 1. Contained metal factor is useful if you need to convert grade from one unit of measurement to another, for example from ounces per tonne to grams per tonne.
Metal units The unit of measurement that you would like to appear in the stope design report in the column that shows the weight of resource in each stope.
Replace negatives with

Any negative value in the resource grade is replaced with the Replace negatives with value. This is useful when a negative grade in the block model has been used to mark a block as waste. In that situation you could use a Replace negatives with value of 0.

Output

An .sdproj file is created, with the project name you specified. The .sdproj file stores the parameters of the stope design project. A .swa file is also created.

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See also

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