Anda di halaman 1dari 7

Solid Expansion Tool

Mining Software Solid Expansion Tool


Abstract
Solid expansion in mathematical terms means finding areas of equal influence for a
given set of solids distributed in 3-D space. Solving this problem is an important task in
many fields of professional activities like geological modeling, mining engineering, or
general CAD modeling. This article presents a new MineSight® CAD tool that can compute
simultaneous expansion or shrinking of solid. Such expansion can be performed in a user
specified direction using one of four types of expansion options: isotropic expansion,
expansion in plane, two-directional expansion along a line, or one-directional expansion
along a vector.
Keywords: solid expansion, 3-D solid modeling, Delaunay triangulation.
Introduction
In the mining industry, solids are usually presented as a triangulated mesh that fully
encloses a 3-D volume. In MineSight®, solids can be generated by a Linker tool, obtained as
a result of some CAD editing operations or be imported from other third-party software
products.
These solids can be used to model real geometrical objects like underground designs
or, geological faults, or as elements of a structural design. They can also present abstract
things like an ore zone of certain mineralization grade. The process of creating these solids
can be complex and heuristic especially when the initial data used for their construction is
sparse or not accurate as is often the case in geological modeling.
When dealing with data that is not defined very accurately, it is often important to
estimate how sensitive it is to variations in the parameters that were used for its creation.
In such cases, it can be interesting to know what shape or volume some particular
geometric structure would take if it gets expanded or shrunk by a specified offset distance.
Inspecting the dynamics of how particular solids are changing at different expansion
rates may also be useful to get a better understanding of the physical processes that these
solids present. The Solid Expansion tool can also be used to find the areas of influences of
solid objects distributed in 3-D.
The generic nature of the mathematical methods used by the Solid Expansion tool make
it useful in a wide range of applications including structural 3-D CAD design, geological
modeling, or scientific research.
Solid Expansion Tool
The Solid Expansion tool presents the user with a graphical user interface to the
geometric engine. The design of the dialog follows the usual Minesight® conventions for
data selections and setting options. It has two tab panels where users can specify one of four
types of expansion operations, set the expansion width, define expansion directions, set
level of accuracy for the expansion operations, and specify other options.
Note: The dialog can perform both expansion and shrinking. To perform shrinking the
expansion width needs to be negative.
24th By default, the Solid Expansion tool uses horizontal planes to define expansion direction.
This can be changed with an option Define expansion direction and arranging an Edit
Annual
Grid in the desired orientation. For one- and two-directional expansions, the expansion
Mintec
(in the dialog expansions are marked as “Up and Down” and “Up”) solids are expanded
Seminar orthogonally to the edit grid plane.

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

Mining Software

Solid Expansion dialog

Input data
MineSight® requires data to be selected in the selection buffer before the Solid Expansion
dialog is enabled. Expansion operations can be performed on individually picked solids or
on a whole selection. The tool preserves the attributes of the selected solids in the result.
MineSight® uses a variety of triangulated data. This includes triangulated LGO grids,
2-D surfaces, 3-D solids with openings, as well as closed solids. Only perfectly closed solids
can be used for the expansion operation. All usual requirements for solids used in tools
elsewhere in MineSight® apply here as well. This includes absence of openings, internal
walls, and self-intersections.
In MineSight®, a solid may consist of multiple, geometrically separate components. These
components are just normal solids which are merged together in the same MineSight®
element. Therefore, components cannot be individually selected and they must have the
same attributes as other components of the solid.
There are no restrictions on how components can be located in respect to each other.
They can fully enclose other components (in which case they serve as voids or holes) or be
on the same level. However, it is not valid to have a component that is only partially inside
of the other component. The Solid Expansion tool does not limit a solid to a number of
components or a number of holes it may have.
The Solids Expansion tool can simultaneously process a number of such multi-component
solids. When several solids are selected for the operation, they are expanded independently
from each other. Different solids do not interfere with each other in any way. For example,
the result of simultaneous expansion of two solids would be the same if those solids were
expanded separately in two separate runs of the tool.
Types of Expansion
The Solid Expansion engine offers one unrestrained and three restrained expansion
operations. These include isotropic expansion, expansion in plane, two-directional
expansion along a line, or one-directional expansion along a vector.
In un-restrained isotropic expansion, the solid is expanded and/or shrunk equally in
all directions while in other operations, each triangle of a solid is be expended or shrunk
depending on it 3-D orientation. 24th
Annual
Mintec
Seminar

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

The examples of different operation are shown in diagrams below.





Mining Software




Isometric expansion

24th
Annual
Mintec
Seminar Expansion in plane

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

Mining Software

Two-directional expansion along line

24th
Annual
Mintec
Seminar
One-directional expansion along vector

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

Plane expansion is an expansion of a solid in directions that are co-linear to


the user supplied plane. There is no any expansion is any direction orthogonal
to the plane.
One- and two-directional expansions are expansions of a solid in directions
Mining Software that are co-linear to the user supplied line where one-directional expansion
further limits the expansion to just one side of the line. These is no expansion in
any direction orthogonal to the line for these operations.
Regardless of the initial shape, a large expansion width will always try to produce a
sphere as a result for isotropic expansion. For large expansion in a plane, the expansion tool
would produce a 3-D disk and for expansion along the line it would produce a prism.
Expansion and Shrinking
Solid expansion can be described as a process of finding a set of points that are located at
a specified distance from the original solid. Connecting these points together produces the
expansion solid.
Unlike a simple scaling, where all the geometrical proportions of the original solid stay
the same, the result of the solid expansion can significantly differ from the original shape.
The extent of such difference depends on the topology of the original solid and the
magnitude of expansion.
The extents of the solid expansion are controlled by a parameter called “expansion width”
that can take any signed values. If the value is positive, the expanding solids are growing
larger. If the value is negative, they shrink.
Note: Both expansion and shrinking are irreversible processes. This means that you may
not get the original shape in the result if you expand a solid by some expansion width and
then shrink it by exactly the same value.
Convex and concave
During solid expansion, it is important to distinguish between convex and concave edges.
If a solid edge in the external wall forms an angle between the adjusted faces less then 180
degrees, it appears as convex. In the internal wall, the same edge would be considered
concave.
Convex edges and vertices always expanded in a counter-phase direction to concave
ones. For example, when a solid expansion was requested, all the convex parts of the
external walls and all the concave parts of the internal wall will be expanded. The others
will be shrunk.
As most real solids have both convex and concave edges, the processes of expansion
and shrinking are happening simultaneously regardless of whether the global option is
expansion or shrinking.
Accuracy
The Solid Expansion engine implements exact analytical algorithms (rather than some
statistical interpolations) and, theoretically, it is capable of achieving a very high level of
accuracy. However, producing highly accurate results can be expensive in terms of required
computer resources like memory and computational time. Therefore, the engineis able to
simplify the process allowing it to produce results in a reasonable time.
There are several reasons for inaccuracies to be introduced into the result. Most
inaccuracy is introduced when parts of the solid get expanded.
24th When an edge gets expanded, the adjusting triangle areas are stretched to fill an
expanded area. Ideally, such an area would present a perfect arch (see picture). However,
Annual
in computer graphics, such an arch would require too many points and would take a lot of
Mintec
computer memory for its storage. So the trade off would be to have fewer points. This helps
Seminar get better performance during solid expansion computation and when handling the results.

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

Max deviation
from true shape
Expansion
envelope Mining Software

Estimating accuracy level while


expanding an edge

The expansion engine offers two levels of accuracy—high and low. This affects how
accurately it will present the expanded area by adding more or fewer points to the arch.
Accuracy is proportional to the absolute value of expansion width. When required, a
higher accuracy can always be achieved when total expansion is preformed as a sequence of
smaller expansions.
Accuracies introduced while shrinking are negligible and caused mostly by precision of
floating point operations.
Regardless of the expansion width used or the level of accuracy, it is always possible to
know the maximum possible deviation of the result from ideal shape.
Summary
The Solid Expansion tool is a new powerful and useful addition to the existing CAD
modeling utilities of MineSight® 3-D. It is presented with a simple interface that exposes
the full functionality of the geometry engine. The tool offers four types of expansion and
shrinking that can be performed in any 3-D orientation.
Appendix
Fig. 1 Expanding and shrinking a cone

24th
Annual
Mintec
Seminar

Page 
Solid Expansion Tool

Fig. 2 Shrinking a cube with internal hole.

Mining Software

Fig. 3 Expanding complex solid by 3m

24th
Annual
Mintec
Seminar

Page 

Anda mungkin juga menyukai