Maptek releases Vulcan 2020 which includes Vulcan Drillhole Optimiser
The new software suite includes Vulcan Drillhole Optimiser, designed to help exploration projects and open-pit and underground operations to develop infill drilling plans to maximize resource recovery.
“With Drillhole Optimiser, geologists can accurately assess multiple scenarios and budgets taking into account existing drilling, locations, and resource classifications,” Maptek said, which results in better orebody confidence with fewer wasted drill holes.
Vulcan 2020 also updates some of the system’s existing functions, including the open-pit compliance tool, which offers automatic comparisons of multiple surfaces against solids.
The function, the company said, aids planners to view how closely plans are being followed for the short-term and mid-term.
Automated Pit Designer function was also enhanced in the new release. “Engineers experience a dramatically improved pit design process, reducing the time to proceed from pit optimization outputs to an actual pit design complete with ramps,” the company said.
“Dynamic reserving is a fast, interactive feature that displays reserve information for nominated regions on the fly. Vulcan users can get basic or advanced reports, charts, and fast reserves simply by picking a solid,” it added.
Maptek group product manager for mine planning Jesse Oldham said a focus by the industry on the effectiveness of material movement has “well and truly shifted” to the technologies that generate value, such as those that help acquire, manage and process data efficiently.
More details
Vulcan delivers an end-to-end solution for geological modelling, mine design, planning and scheduling, providing holistics benefits across the mining lifecycle.
With Vulcan 2020, Maptek continues the tradition of helping customers create value and work more effectively with their digital mining data. This release delivers new design, planning, reporting and analysis functionality alongside enhanced usability and automated workflows.
Vulcan is populated with practical tools that help modern mining operations generate value from their technical information. These translate into increased productivity for specific applications – such as geological modelling, automated pit design and grade control processes – as well as improvement to the mining business in terms of cost efficiencies.
Vulcan 2020
Engineering productivity gains
Automated Pit Designer
Modify designs, insert ramps and interact with your designs dynamically. Intuitive interface now supports dump design. You gain a dramatically improved pit design process, reducing the time to go from pit optimisation outputs to a final pit design complete with ramps.
End of period reconciliation of volumes for short and mid term planners is now easier than ever. Automatic comparison of multiple surfaces against solids helps identify how well plans have been followed. You can now filter by area, thickness and/or volume and work without the Block Model.
Short Term Planner
Improved animation, filtering and assigning of attributes allow you to quickly compare and better visualise equipment schedules for weekly and monthly planning horizons.
Gantt Scheduler
New pivot table reporting functionality in Vulcan Gantt Scheduler allows you to analyse the schedule in a more streamlined fashion, eliminating the need to export the information.
Geology and geostatistical tools
Drillhole Optimiser
NewExploration, open pit and underground operations can now develop optimal infill drilling plans that maximise resource recovery for a given budget. Consider various scenarios in planning the optimal drilling plan and can evaluate options before allocating the drilling budget across your sites and operations.
Simple Kriging and Simple Co‑Kriging
Vulcan offers a wide range of advanced geostatistical methods. Additional parameters have been added for Simple Kriging and Simple Co-Kriging in grade estimation, allowing you to specify values for samples out of the model definition.
Vulcan Data Analyser
A faster, better method for incorporating charts into documents, creating swath plots and defining domains for estimation. New options include swath plots for checking results, easier definition of direction for orthogonal variograms and multiple display histograms.
Herco Analysis
Herco Analysis (previously Support Analysis), features improved panels, layout and workflow with multiple graphics output for more intuitive comparison of economic mineralisation scenarios.
Foundational tools
Dynamic Reserves
New
A fast, interactive tool that shows reserve information for your nominated regions on the fly. Work with your composites database, including directly with your drill hole database.
Get basic or advanced reports, charts, and fast reserves of solids simply by picking them. Enhanced reporting and visualization options help you evaluate if solids meet planning goals.
Triangulation Repair
Quickly repair invalid triangulations without changing volume characteristics. You can apply this option when creating or importing triangulations.
Plot Builder
Faster and more intuitive plotting, with no need to export data. See exactly what your plot is going to look like as you create it.
Enhanced stratigraphic options
Projection Algorithms
An improved projection algorithm reduces unwanted segments, crossovers or other issues that require manual manipulation when working with stratigraphic deposits.
Coal Washability
Easily and efficiently incorporate washability data with your structural, run of mine and quality data to optimise your mining operation for product.
