Maptek Vulcan™ Version 7.5 provides customers with innovative functionality to improve their daily productivity.

Vulcan 7.5 features a new module for oil sands operations, upgrades to open pit, coal and underground design menu. Performance and usability have been improved. Vulcan 7.5 is compatible with the Microsoft® Vista operating system.

Highlights of Maptek Vulcan™ Version 7.5

Block model slice showing TIV:BIP results

New! Oil Sands Module
Total Volume in Place: calculates total inground bitumen. This option has the capability to be run within a specific area, as well as over the entire block model.

• Block Averaging: allows users to average different grades within the block model.
• Block Area Averaging: users can select an area of interest by several methods and then display points that represent blocks in that area. The points will have the average of a pre-determined variable assigned to them.
• Dilution Modelling: estimates diluted grades along the ore/waste contacts as determined by the TV:BIP (Total Volume of Material : Bitumen Volume-In-Place) ratio.
• Ring It: designed to flag blocks in a model above a series of points with the value of the w-tag of those points.
• Spec files can be saved for different ratios, making it easier for users to check they are running the correct specifications.

Dump Design

Open Pit Menu Upgrades

• Design pits with better transition between batter and berm changes, and automatic blending between varying road widths. Different road widths and grades are catered for within the same polygon and within slot cuts.
• The predefined bench heights panel automatically prompts to different bench heights while creating projections, and ensures that the bench height is used as per the listed order. Batter and berm angle definition is now dealt with in the same panel.
  
• Customise the contents of dialog boxes displayed in the Design and Pit options of the Open Pit Ramps submenu.

Automatic Ramp Generator

Automatic Ramp Generator

• Design decline or spiral ramps in an underground environment by nominating a start and end point and gradient.
  
• User-defined constraints include maximum grade for turns and straight sections, and optional transition grade at start and finish.
  
• Build accurate solutions based on block model variables such as development cost and ore values.
  
• Exclusion zones, visualisation of the drift and reserves reporting provide further increases in efficiency in designing underground ramps.
  
• Work with simple and advanced parameters, with improved capabilities to save specification files for generating ramps.

Interactive Editing for Underground Ramps

• Modify ramp designs by dragging a handle at turn points to any new location in the space, while applying a constant grade.
  
• Turns can be easily added or removed and placed at the desired location with a simple mouse movement.
  
• Grades are dynamically displayed to maintain control on the operational constraints at all times.
  
• Multiple window display allows the results to be viewed from different perspectives while the ramp is being edited, powerfully enhancing understanding of the relationship of the design with existing mining or geological structures.

Advanced Reserves Module

• Obtain reserve information by benches, by simply specifying a bench origin and bench height. The Breakdown by Bench option has eliminated the need to group blocks with the same characteristics or create triangulations of fixed width, saving significant time. Results are stored in a Vulcan DMP or CSV file, with the speed of calculation dependent on block model size. This option provides an efficient way of identifying material content in each designed bench and improves the scheduling of ore and waste mining.
  
• Pit contours can be coloured using a nominated colour sequence or an existing colour legend. The resulting information can be stored and viewed as an animation and saved in a layer.

Metadata

New! Metadata

• Customise metadata for existing design objects and layers, and import or export attribute data from and to shape files.
  
• Metadata assigned to an object, group of objects, or layers, can be viewed in the  object’s datatip. The display characteristics of loaded objects can easily be changed to distinguish between similar objects using unique metadata values.

Data Posting

• Create plots of points from sources such as databases, mapfiles, CSV and design files.
  
• View multiple data values plotted at one location, with multiple outputs such as underlay, layer, text file and spreadsheet.
  
• Datapoints can be size or colour-coded based on database values. Values such as horizon thickness, interburdens and partings can be automatically calculated directly from the lithological logging.

English Log Generation (left) Straigraphic Columns (right)

New! Stratigraphic Columns

• Includes features such as continuations, expansions, single-bore, multi-bore and cross-section plots, correlation lines, traces and data tables.

FixDHD

• Ignore specified horizons, such as roof and/or floor, for particular boreholes if they are known to adversely affect the modelling process.
  
• Faulting can be incorporated into the horizon interpolation process; fault zones can be defined either by solid triangulations or by an existing database flag.
  
• Mapfiles can be directly output to an Isis database for viewing and archive.

Pattern Filled Contours

Legend-based Pattern Filled Contours

• Contours for both grids and triangulation surfaces allow easy comparison of elevation contrasts.

English Log Generation

• Decode geological logs from Isis/ODBC databases.
  
• Access predefined Type Attributes from a database or enter them manually, and use these translations to generate a readable report of lithology or other logged information.

Create Stratigraphic Solid

• Horizon sub-blocking can be defined relative to a roof, floor or general RL.
  
• Improved grade estimation performance within stratigraphic block models.

Grade/Tonnage

• Breakdown fields can be applied when performing multiple grade/tonnes curve calculations.
  
• Export reports directly to spreadsheets and generate the format for grade/tonnes for the Vulcan Cutoff Grade Optimiser.

Grade Control

Grade Control

• Straight lines, polygons and curved lines can be used in the blocking
  out process.

Multi Boolean

• Improved sorting and naming for generated solids where centroid values (X, Y or Z) are now used when assigning triangulation names.

Optimisation

• Incorporate stockpiles when running an optimisation project by nominating the materials that will be sent to the stockpile as well as maximum quantities for any controlling fields.

Workflow improvements

• Faster processing speeds reduce the time taken to estimate values into a block model. Multiple processors accelerate the grade estimation process and an option to allow 3GB processing helps users working with extremely large Vulcan datasets.
• Change directories without closing the current Vulcan session by simply right clicking to navigate to another project.
• Direct Import / Export of DWG and DGN files eliminates the potential loss of data through conversion to generic DXF format.
• Configure time and date formats to your requirements.
• Find the shortest perpendicular distance between two objects.
• New Timeout feature* implements an automatic logoff procedure, whereby Vulcan will automatically release the floating licence back into the pool after a specified time of inactivity. To resume work, the user can then check out the licence again, if it is available, and continue.
  *Users need to contact their Maptek office to install this feature.

Customer requirements driving our 2008 development agenda include multiple language offerings, third party database support, data security, data auditability and revision control. Future versions will support much larger datasets and faster graphics on the 64-bit platform.