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3D modeling of underground mined areas
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a 3D model of an underground area using Promine
modules. To complete this tutorial the modules 3D Drift, Room and Pillar, 3D Modeling and 3D
Raise will be used.
All modeling for this tutorial will be done on the base of survey data. The first part of this tutorial
will focus on the modeling of a 3D Drift, the second part will model the room and finally a 3D Raise
will be generated in the last part.

3D Drift model from surveying data

Opening the provided drawing (3DM_Mined_Area) you will notice, that it has two major parts.
The first part is the surveyed drift data with current surveyed wall layer colored in magenta, back
points colored in red and the floor blocks in green. We will use this part for the 3D Drift.
The second part represent a sill with wall surveyed layer in cyan, floor points colored in green,
backs in magenta and the pillars in blue. This part will be modeled with the room and pillar module.
To use the 3D Drift module, go to the Promine Modeling category. Click on the module options
button, and the following window will open. Here you can configure some options such as profile
drift, month color for the 3D model built, object snaps options, force the junction too simplify the
3D model, the layers of floors used and so on.

For this tutorial, we will use a symmetric drift profile with 4 meters of height and 4.5 meters of
width, the chamfer will be 50 centimeters between the walls and the surface of the roof.
After configuring the drift profile, press Ok. An example of a drift profile configuration is shown on
the next page.

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As for the snap objects mode option enable the snap of the endpoint and nearest. The month
color should be set also according to the needs of the user, we will also make sure that the option
of join command is ticked and configure the other options and save the module settings.
After setting the parameters, we can build a 3D Drift using the surveyed data in the drawing. To
begin press the main button of the module (Construct Drift), the following dialog box will appear:

Construction date
(Month color)

3D Drift target Layer

selection

Allows to Allows to Allows to make a 3D Drift

start a new connect a 3D using 3D polylines
3D drift drift to an (Require 6 polylines)
existing one

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1. To start a new 3D Drift segment press, Start:
Once you click that button, the program will ask you to pick opposite wall points, then a back
point and a floor point as well. After the first segment you can create following 3D Drift sections
by picking the two wall points, then select back in command line or type B then pick your back
point. You have to do the same for the floor. The program will automatically ask you to select
wall points again, backs and floors you have to select in the command line. Be sure to follow
this order to build your 3D Drift:
• Pick walls points,
• Select Back in the command line, pick the back point,
• Select Floor in command line, pick floor point.
You will end with a drawing like the following one:

As you can see in the command line you can also use the Auto mode to build the straight
segments of your 3D Drift faster. In this case, the program will ask a direction of the drift, drag
the mouse inside your walls and after you will be asked to pick the walls.
We are going to continue doing this for the rest of the drift in the drawing. If you accidentally
lose the connection you can use the following method to connect new drifts.
2. To connect to an existing 3D Gallery press Connect:
Once you have an existing 3D Drift and you want to connect a new one press the connect
button and the program will ask you to select the segment with which you want to connect.
Once the selection is done you will proceed like for the construction of the new drift (see in 1)

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Note that the built 3D Drift has several segments, to make the drawing lighter and easier to use it
is necessary to join the segments (meshes) formed by the construction of the drift in 3D. To do
this, go to the panel of the module 3D Drift then click on the button Join Meshes pick all the
segments you want to join and now they are one object. Once the segments are joined you can
for example calculate the volume / tonnage with using the tonnage button and then inserting the
density of the material.

Room and Pillar Modeling from surveying data

In this part of the tutorial, we will cover the modeling of a room with pillars from the survey
elements. In the same drawing, we have the surveyed walls (cyan), the floor points (in green
color) and roof (in magenta) as well as the contours of the pillars colored in blue.
To begin, we will see the options of the module Room and Pillar:

Tolerance comparison value

(1mm)

Elevation specification method

Objects filter specifications uses in the

surface construction

To create a 3D model of a mined area using the pillar and room method with Promine, we must
first build the roof and floor, those two surfaces will be joined with the walls that will be defined by
the contour (surveyed wall). Once all three surfaces (roof, floor and walls) have been constructed
they must be joined. After that the pillars can be removed from the resulting object.

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To build the back surface, press the Draw Surface button and the dialog box will open:

Surface layer target

Picking contour polyline

button

Elevation set up

Objects filter for the

elevation point

Polylines points elevations

specification method
(set in option)

Select the layer on which the surface will be drawn for the tutorial we will choose the same layer
the back points are located on. Select the Pick contour polyline button and go pick the contour
polyline in cyan. Once the outline is chosen, you will need to choose the points of elevation that
will be used.
For this tutorial you have two options:
• Select the known layer for the elevation points
• Using objects (such as backs or floors blocks, Points, Text, etc.) with this option you have
to pick the objects in the drawing and make sure that the objects are in the limit of the
room and pillar. A filter can also be used to facilitate selection. Note that the program filters
objects according to the selection made in the Module options.
When all these parameters are defined, it remains only to choose which method will used to build
the surface. By default, Promine offers you the method chosen in the options of the module. For
the tutorial we will use the mean elevation of 4 quadrant points.
To build the floor surface repeat the same step as for the back surface, just make sure you choose
the right layers (floors) to build your floors surface.
Once you are done with the back and floor surfaces construction you should have something like
the drawing below, note that the back surface is colored like the back points (magenta) and the
floor surface will be in green.

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The next step will be the construction of the wall surface, using the Walls command from the
module, for this press the button and the program will ask you to select the back and floor surface
to draw the walls between those.
Once the wall surface is built, we need to join the three surfaces for that use the Join Meshed
command, then select the back surface, floor surface and the wall surface. You can also drag the
mouse to quick select the three surfaces. When the surfaces are joined you can select the mesh
to check if it is a single piece.
The next step of this part of tutorial will be the pillar creation, for this select the Pillars command
and Promine will ask you to select the Room 3D Model, select the model built in the previous
step, then the program will ask you to select the pillar select the in the drawing (colored in blue),
make each pillar step by step, at the end you will get a drawing like the following one:

As you can see, the mesh built before was modified, this time we see voids representing the
volume of the pillars that will be left. Once we have the final mesh its volume/tonnage can be
calculated using the tonnage command and inserting the density of the material.

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3D Raise modeling
In this last part of the tutorial, a 3D raise model will be created from survey data using two
methods. At first, the raise will be modeled using the 3D Raise module and in the second part the
raise will be built with rings using the 3D Modeling module. It should be noted that in the first
method, we will use four 3D polylines which represent respectively the surveyed walls, the roof
and the floor of a raise even if the latter is vertical. We will use the drawing 3D_Raises.dwg for
both methods.

3D Raise from 4 polylines using the 3D Raise Module

In this first method a 3D Raise will be generated from four 3D polylines. In the given drawing you
can see that we have two polylines in magenta color representing surveyed walls, a red polyline
representing the hang wall of the raise and a green polyline representing the footwall of the Raise.
To begin the construction of the 3D Raise:
• Open the given drawing 3D_Raise.dwg
• Click on the Construct Raise button,
• Select yes in the following dialogue boxt as in this case we have 4 polylines to make a
square shape raise, but you could have a polygonal raise in that case you will select each
polyline defining the polygon.
• Select the red polyline, one of the magenta polyline, then the green one and at the end
select the second magenta polyline .
It is important to select the polylines following the order to have a good shaped raise. Once you
follow the steps describe above you will end with something like the following drawing:

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3D Raise from Rings using the 3D Modeling Module
For the second method of modeling a 3D Raise, survey data in form of rings will be used. To have
these rings, the survey is done at the contours of the raise so as to have closed 3D polylines when
inserted into the drawing.
With this method, the 3D Modeling module will be used and we will exploit one of the fastest
method which consist to connect automatically the closed polylines. To start:
• Use the same given drawing 3D_Raise.dwg,
• Go in the 3D Model Module
• Click on the Construct 3D Model button,
• Once click a dialog box as follows will open:

As indicated above, for this part of the tutorial we will use the fastest method so we choose the
automatic method. Once this button is clicked, the program will ask you to choose the polylines
that will be part of the 3D model, choose your polylines(rings) by order bottom up and in the end
you should have a drawing similar to this one:

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Once the 3D Raises are generated in both methods, one can use other commands like for
example the calculation of the volume / tonnage that has been mined and thus compared this
result with what was planned.

Conclusion
To conclude this tutorial, in which different methods of modeling 3D mined areas of the Promine
Modeling Category are used, one can find that the method will be influenced by the way the survey
is made in the mine.
For example, for one mining operation the mined 3D drifts can be modeled using the 3D Drift
module, while in another one the same task can be accomplished but using the module of 3D
Model, or 3D Raise. So, we have seen that we can model 3D Raises in two ways. It will all depend
on how the surveyors collect their data.
Also, you have to be careful about certain modules in order to accomplish certain tasks, for
example there are methods that will generate 3D models that have to be processed afterwards
by using the module of Solids. Among others, when generating a 3D Raise with the Polylines we
get a single mesh while if we do the same exercise with the rings the mesh does not form a single
entity as they might want to be calculated separately. To join them to have a single tonnage we
can use the Solids module.

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