Stope Slicer

The triobject, of the solid, you are slicing. Only that triobject is sliced, so to slice an entire solid, make sure the entire solid has the same triobject number.

Tip: To see the triobject number for any part of a solid, on the Tools toolbar, click the Select tool, and choose Select Segment/Trisolation.

This setting determines whether to slice the solid horizontally (Levels only), vertically (Stopes only), or both horizontally and vertically (Levels and Stopes).

This setting determines how the object is sliced vertically. Stope method is available only when Slice is set to Levels and Stopes, or Stopes only.

• Planes. The width of each stope is the distance between two planes. You specify the From plane and To plane for each stope in the table in the Stopes section of this form. In the table, you must add one row for each stope.
• Start plane and length. Slices are created starting from the vertical plane you select in Start at plane. The width of each slice is the Stope length. Each stope is followed by a pillar which has a width equal to the Pillar length.
• Start plane, length and target. Slices are created starting from the vertical plane you select in Start at plane. The width of each slice is the Stope length, provided that the tonnage or volume (depending on the Target option you selected) of the stope is greater than or equal to the Target value. If the tonnage or volume of the stope is below the Target value, the width of the slice is increased by the Stope length and the tonnage or volume is compared to Target value again. The width of the stope is increased using this process until the tonnage or volume is greater than or equal to Target value.

Notes:

• When the Target is tonnage, tonnage is calculated as volume x density. Density is specified on the Block Model tab as a constant value, or as a block model attribute.
• If you have specified a Pillar length, each pillar is created only after the final width of the stope that precedes it is calculated, and that stope is created.
• Centreline and length. Each slice is created along, and perpendicular to, a centreline string, in the direction of the centreline string. The width of each stope is the Stope length.
• Centreline, length and target. Each slice is created along, and perpendicular to, a centreline string, in the direction of the centreline string. The width of each stope is the Stope length, provided that the tonnage or volume is greater than or equal to the Target value. If the tonnage or volume is less than the Target value, the width of the stope is increased by Stope length until the tonnage or volume meets or exceeds the Target value.

• Elevation. The object is sliced horizontally at the elevations that you specify.

Note: You can create crown pillars by leaving a gap between the elevations that you select. For example, if you fill in one row in the From and To table as From: 700, and To: 750, then a second row as From: 760 and To: 810, you also create a crown pillars between 750 and 760.

• Planes. The object is sliced horizontally using the planes that you specify.

When you are slicing by levels and stopes, using a centreline, and slicing levels by elevation, you can use different centrelines on different levels. From and To allow you to specify the elevations on which to use each centreline string.

From and To define the slicing levels. Depending on your Slice Using value, you define the slicing levels either as Z elevation values, or as planes. When creating stopes using a centreline, you can enter a different centreline for each level that you enter in this table.

The plane that is the near edge of the first slice. If there are multiple rows, the second From plane field is the plane that is the near edge of the second slice, and so on.

The plane that is the far edge of the first slice. If there are multiple rows, the second From plane field is the plane that is the far edge of the second slice, and so on. To add an additional row, press TAB in the To plane field.

Note: You can create a pillar by leaving a gap between From plane and To plane.

• Tonnage. The minimum tonnage of material that you require in each stope. The tonnage value is volume of the stope x density. Density is set on the Block Model tab in the Specific gravity value field, or, if you are using a block model, in an attribute, in the block model, that stores density.
• Volume. The minimum volume of material that you require in each stope.

The minimum tonnage or volume, depending on the Target option, that must exist in each stope. Using tonnage as an example, after the STOPE SLICER function has sliced the ore body, if the tonnage of any of the new stopes is less than the Target value, the stope length of the stope is increased by the Stope length so that the length of that specific stope is doubled.

Tip: If you want the size (tonnage or volume) of each stope to be as close as possible to the Target value, use a small Stope length. Processing time is increased but the tonnage or volume is closer to the Target value.

The trisolation number of the excluded object.

Note: To add an additional exclusion, press TAB.

The prefix to apply to the name of each stope.

Tip: To see the name, and all other properties of the stope, after the stope is created, choose the Select tool, on the Tools toolbar, and choose Select Segment/Trisolation. Then select the stope in Graphics to see the properties in the Properties pane.

The automatically incrementing part of the name. The increment can be numeric or alphabetic. For example, a Start At value of 01A will cause the next values to be 01B and 01C, until 01Z, when they become 02A. Similarly, a Start At value of 001, will cause values of 002, 003 … 010. The way you specify the Start At value determines a format for the rest of the values, and any character other than numeric or alphabetic is placed in the correct place. For example, “01-A” causes values of 01-Z, 02-A, with the hyphen always located in the same position in the name.

The name of a new property you want to create and apply to the stopes. The value of this property is added as a prefix to the name of the stope - that is, to its Name property. These values are also written to the object that is created (and the values are stored in the file) as a named attribute.

Tip: You can use Area label to name ore bodies or stopes. Then if you create a Stope Slicer .csv report, you can open the report in Excel and create a pivot table, summarising the data to suit your needs.

• attribute. The Attribute field provides the density value.
• value. The Value field provides the density value as a single number.

• Selected: Stope Slicer uses sub-blocking to include data from blocks that are partially within the object you are slicing, but whose centroids are outside the object.
• Cleared: For the Stope Slicer report to use any data from a given block, the centroid of that block must be inside the object you are slicing.

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

The attribute must have a type of character, integer, or be a calculated attribute that evaluates to a character or integer.

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.

If you did not replace negatives , the blocks with a negative grade would reduce the contained metal values shown in the Stope Slicer report.

• reset at each level. Each level of a stope will have the same colour.
• continue across levels. Each level of a stope has a new colour.