acQuire™ 3.

9 Overview
22nd Presented by: Paul Whelan, Metech Canada Ltd.
acQuire™ software is the benchmark for secure, flexible, and user-friendly management
Annual of exploration and mining data in the resources industry. It has been adopted as a
preferred data management solution by many corporate clients, ranging from startup
exploration companies to global mining houses. acQuire™ clients are not only users of
Seminar the software but also active contributors to the continuous process of improvement of
acQuire™. This feedback loop is critical for making acQuire™ a product truly tailored for
mining and exploration professionals.
The next major upgrade of acQuire™ data management software, version 3.9 is due to
be released in the second quarter of 2005. It will bring some exciting new functionalities, as
well as significant enhancements of the existing features, as summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of enhancements in acQuire™ 3.9.

Reporting

Advanced Spatial Querying

New
Functionalities
Historic QAQC Charting

DAP integration

Script Object (former SQL Object)

User accessible multiple actions for button control: “Accept” or
“Refresh Lookups” or SQL statements after the button press
Major operation.
Enhancements of Generation of a support package containing the database meta
Existing Features data that the object depends on:
Derived Fields in Compound Definitions
New Network license for acQuire™

Export Object
Dynamic Coordinate Transformation:
Option to choose the best ranked source coordinate, rather
than manually creating a list of source coordinate sets will be
added.
A Local Grid can be related to its parent via a single point plus
Rotation and Scale, rather than only via 2 points.
Minor acQuire™ 3.9 will have Enhancements to Datamine client in
Enhancements of Export Object with the addition of “Replace NULL numeric
Existing Features values with”, “Replace NULL text with” options will be added.
The missing intervals for Assay or Geology will be filled with
these replacement values or with NULL.

Data Entry Objects

An option to ignore errors and set an error limit will be added to
the Import interface of the Offline Data Entry Object.
An option to apply Workspace filter or define a Global filter
applicable to all child sheets will be added to the Export utility.
Test mode enhancement – the Display and Export filters will be
combined so that tests can be performed on simulated dataset.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 1

 Import Objects
Display of symbols on QAQC charts will be improved so that
22nd
the symbols are displayed at the correct size when plotted.
Annual
Control Sheets, Data Entry panels
It will be possible to add images in JPG and PNG format, which
tend to be smaller than the BMP files
Seminar
Minor It will be possible to undo changes in Properties dialog in
Enhancements of design mode.
Existing Features
Form and Compound Definitions
It will be possible to:
Define multiple Category levels to better organise Form
Definitions.
Categorise Compound Definitions in a hierarchical fashion.

Improved Error Logging GUI

When an error occurs, a details panel contains all errors that
lead to the final error statement.

New Functionality
The most significant new functionalities introduced in version 3.9 will be Ad Hoc
Reporting, Spatial Query on Export, and Charting of Historic QAQC Data.
Reporting
In the current version of acQuire™, customized reports displaying data from acQuire™
databases are prepared by using LogReporter or by creating customized views in the
acQuire™ database customized data for third-party reporting software packages, such
as Crystal Reports™ or Microsoft® Access. LogReporter is primarily designed to create
reports of graphical geological logs. Currently, there is no generic reporting module
embedded in acQuire™ to generate visually appealing and customisable reports. The
need for an ad hoc reporting solution was identified by Metech and its clients and
resulted in implementing a new tool, the Reporting Object. This tool will enable creating
and customising reports in response to specific user requirements, in a similar way as
Crystal Reports™ or Microsoft® Access reports. The data for reports will be sourced
directly from acQuire™ databases (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Dialogs showing how to create a

new Report Object in acQuire™ 3.9.

Page 2 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

 The design environment will be integrated in the acQuire™ interface, utilizing features
22nd familiar to other acQuire™ objects, such as Properties dialog, Expression Builder engine,
or Multi-sheet layout. A report will typically consist of a Control Sheet and one or more
SQL Sheets. Keeping in line with the usual approach in designing acQuire™ user interface
Annual tools, the input from the user will be accumulated on Control Sheet (Figure 2), and then
passed to SQL Sheets for extracting data for the report (Figure 3).

Seminar

Figure 2. Control Sheet

of a Reporting Object in
Design Mode.

The extracted data sets will be based on user-defined SQL scripts or on Form Definitions.

Figure 3. SQL Sheet

of a Reporting Object
showing a read-only
system-generated
sql statement
representing a form
definition based on
Collar Compound
Definition.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 3

 Report sheets will be able to contain sub reports and summaries in the form of running
totals and groupings (Figure 4).
22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 4. Report sheet of a Reporting Object in Design Mode.

Once the report is run (Figure 5), it will be possible to print or export it into client
formats, such as text files (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Report sheet of a Reporting Object in Run Mode.

Page 4 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 6. Output formats of export from Reporting Object.

QAQC Data Charting object

Historic QAQC Data Charting object will provide a solution for displaying QAQC
data stored in an acQuire™ database, in the form of chart types commonly used across the
mining and exploration industries.
This tool will be a new object type. It will be created from within the workspace in the
same manner as a new Data Entry (DE), Import, or SQL object. The design and setup of
this object will be via a wizard type GUI, similar to a DE object. As such, the object would
contain multiple sheets with a specific chart and data on each sheet. There will also be a
Control sheet for setting Global filter variables and a Summary sheet for summarizing the
pass/failure rate of the various other sheets.
Depending upon what type of data is selected (standards or paired) a choice of pre-
defined chart types will be available, as shown in Figures 7.

Figure 7. The generic Chart/Data window layout for Paired data.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 5

 22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 8. The generic Chart/Data window layout for Standards data.

Spatial Query
Spatial Query on Export will provide a sophisticated method for subsetting the
drillhole collars or point samples to be exported using a polygon or a solid. For example,
it will be possible to select drillholes that fall some percentage within a polygon or solid,
or drillholes that intersect a polygon, a surface or a solid. The coordinates of the polygons,
surfaces, or solids will come from external graphic file formats. It will be possible
to transform the coordinates of the geometry on the fly using acQuire™ Coordinate
transformation (i.e. it will be possible for the coordinates to be defined in the same or in a
different coordinate system than those of drillholes or point samples to be exported). The
geometry file formats can be any of the file formats below:

The dialog below (Figure 9) shows the Spatial Limits tab of Geographic tab. It will
enable the user to specify parameters for spatial querying. This tab will be a part of the
acQuire™ API – i.e., it will be a part of the Export object or acQuire™ GUI embedded in
Minesight® and other client applications that implement acQuire™ API. The user will be
required to select the limits of spatial querying defined either by a bounding box or by a
geometry file or both, and to select the type of geometry to be used for spatial querying.
The next step will then be to select one or more of the predefined spatial query templates.

Page 6 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 9. A dialog showing Spatial Query setup screen.

The result of a spatial query setup in the dialog above (Figure 9) is displayed in
Figure 10. Only the drill holes intersecting the displayed solid at least once were
imported into MineSight®.

Figure 10. The result of a spatial query displayed in MineSight.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 7

Geosoft Inc DAP Implementation
Since version 3.8.6, acQuire™ software has been DAP-enabled. DAP technology (owned
22nd
by Geosoft Inc.) is a solution for overcoming data access challenges typical of many
mining and exploration industry environments, such as insufficient bandwidth. Once
implemented, the DAP server provides geospatial data viewing, cataloguing, and data
Annual
extraction functionality. With acQuire™ 3.9 it will be possible to serve data from acQuire™
databases using DAP, thus enabling a more efficient and effective evaluation and retrieval
of large data sets for geoscientists.
Seminar
Major Enhancements of Existing Features
Among the existing features the most substantial enhancements will be included in
Script objects (a successor of SQL objects).
Enhancements of SQL (Script) Object
The enhancements implemented in the Script object significantly increase the versatility
of its predecessor, the SQL object. A new sheet type for running DOS batch commands
or scripts in other languages, such as Python or Perl will be added. This enables the data
extracted from the database to be further processed within the same acQuire™ object.
In the example below (Figure 11) the Script object Python Script converts the .sif file
c:\temp\u48893.sif into a comma delimited c:\temp\temp.csv file using Python
language script run from within a Script object.

Figure 11. Python script in a Script object. The colour coding corresponds to Python syntax rules.
As shown below (Figure 12), the Script object will also provide options to automatically
export the results of a query into a client format, such as text file.

Page 8 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 12. Export setup screen of Script object.

When running T-SQL scripts it will be possible to display up to 10 result grids within
a single sheet by embedding the query in an exec () statement or by executing a stored
procedure (Figure 13).

Figure 13. T-SQL script in a Script object. Multiple SQL statements, each returning a different resultset were run from a
single sheet.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 9

Multiple Action Definition of Button Control
In acQuire™ 3.9 the users will be able to customize the action that would occur when the
button control is clicked. In addition to the previously available Accept action it will also
22nd
be possible to select Refresh Lookups or to run SQL statements before or after the button
press operation. It will be possible to execute several actions in a sequence by a single click
of the button. This enhancement will add a great deal of functionality and versatility to the
Annual
control sheets or Data Entry panels. In the example below (Figure 14), the button INSERT/
UPDATE was programmed to first delete the record if it existed in PROJECT table, then
insert a new record into PROJECT table, and then refresh the lookups on the sheet.
Seminar

Figure 14. Control

sheet of a Script object
in Design Mode. The
INSERT/UPDATE
button has three
different actions
associated with the click
event of the button.

The example below (Figure 15) shows the Control sheet containing multiple buttons
programmed to execute different tasks.

Figure 15. Control sheet

of a Script object in Run
Mode. There are three
button controls on the
sheet, each executing
different actions when
clicked.

Page 10 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

 acQuire™ Support Packages
22nd In order to increase the efficiency of resolving support requests raised by acQuire™
users, support packages containing the object and database meta data that the object

Annual relies on will be generated in acQuire™ 3.9. In the future, instead of sending the object to
the acQuire™ helpdesk, acQuire™ users will send the support package. Once received
by Metech, the package will then allow the Metech personnel to recreate the user’s

Seminar environment on a local database and thus identify the user’s problem more efficiently. The
support package will be created by right-clicking on an object (e.g. Data Entry or Import
object), selecting Properties menu item and clicking on Build Support Package button
(Figure 16).

Figure 16. Dialogs enabling creating Object Support Package in acQuire™ 3.9.

Derived Fields in Compound Definitions

The current standard solution for creating calculated fields in acQuire™ is to run
Calculated Field Wizard which enables storing the result of calculation in an acQuire™
Virtual Field. This means that when the source data changes on the acQuire™ database
the calculation needs to be re-run in order to reflect the changes in the calculated fields.
acQuire™ 3.9 will enable creating dynamically calculated fields—Derived Fields. These
fields will be calculated on the fly in a similar way as for example the _BEST fields.
They will always reflect the state of the underlying data, and eliminate the need for
recalculations. The dynamic Derived Fields will be read only and will be available to the
users via form definitions sourced from relevant compound definitions. In the example
below (Figure 17) the fields GEOINT and LITHCOM are derived fields. GEOINT is
derived as GEOLTO-GEOLFROM, whereas LITHCOM is the result of concatenating the
Virtual Fields Lith1 and Lith_Comment. The SQL statements defining both GEOINT and
LITHCOM (‘Code - ‘ + ISNULL({Lith1},’’) + ‘ : Comment - ‘ + ISNULL({Lith_Comment},’’)
will be stored in acQuire™ META tables.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 11

 22nd
Annual
Seminar

Figure 17. The Derived Fields

GEOINT and LITHCOMP are
a part of Geology Compound
Definition and are available via
Form Definition.

The data extracted into an acQuire™ Form Object in Derived Fields GEOINT and Lith_
Comment would be read only (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Form Object with Derived Fields GEOINT and LITHCOM.

Page 12 acQuire™ 3.9 Overview

 New Network License for acQuire™
22nd With the release of acQuire™ 3.9, Metech will offer to all the clients a choice of licensing
solution. The clients will be able to select between a traditional licensing via a hardware

Annual sentinel, a server-based software-based licensing model, or a combination of both. The key
features of the network licensing model are:
- network server will allocate a license to run acQuire™ to a specific client computer
Seminar from a pool of licenses assigned to the server
- it will be possible to export a network license onto a client computer and thus use
acQuire™ on a computer disconnected from the network
- when the license is no longer needed on the client computer it will be returned to the
common pool of server licences.

acQuire™ 3.9 Overview Page 13