What’s New

Workflow Setup

Process Workflows can now be configured in a new Workflow Setup Editor.

When you open a new or an existing workflow:

1. A Navigation pane is shown to the left of the Process Workflow window.

2. A Properties pane is shown to the right of the Navigation pane.

3. A Workflow Runner dock panel can be opened to the right of the Properties pane (when you select that tab).

Process Workflow Setup

For more information, see: Workflow Setup

 

Workflow Runner

An enhanced Workflow Runner dock panel can now be used to execute Process Workflows. A Process Workflow defines an ordered list of steps. Each step in the workflow represents an action that needs to be taken in the overall process. Steps may be grouped into folders like a node tree, but only leaf nodes (steps) are executed. Grouping may be useful for conveying the intent of a group of steps.

A new Reset and Run All action rewinds to the first step in the workflow, clears the per-step run state, and runs the whole setup.

For more information, see: Workflow Runner

 

Dynamic Haulage Rules

Haulage is one of mining's highest-cost items, and getting the source-to-destination path right is critical to an accurate schedule — get the estimate wrong, and cycle times (and the resulting schedule) are wrong too.

Building vector-driven haulage routes from straight-line haul segments can be tedious and fiddly to redo for every period across the schedule horizon. Used alongside vector-driven profiles, Dynamic Haulage Rules are now fully integrated into Spry and provide baseline point-to-point path-finding using grids.

Dynamic (rather than Point or Vector) Step Types allow haulage routes to be created which follow the mine as it changes and which adhere to various constraints, including the use of region polygons and geofence boundaries.

For more information, see: Setup (Dynamic)

 

You can now use the Spry Help Assistant to answer questions from the Spry documentation.

Click the Help Assistant icon on the title bar to open the panel:

Note that the Assistant can only be accessed when you are logged in with a Micromine ID on Cloud Licensing.

In the Help Assistant Window, enter a question or a request for information and click Send:

You can download a copy of the Micromine Artificial Intelligence Transparency Statement from the link.

For more information, see: Help Assistant

 

You can now use the Spry Assistant to set, validate, expand and explain your equipment source paths.

The Assistant is docked on the right edge of the application window. Click on the tab to open the panel.

When the Assistant is asked a question or is given a directive when the Source Path Editor is open, an introduction appears, describing what the Assistant can do in an Equipment Scheduling Assistant context (read the Case structure, validate, write, schedule and verify paths).

For example, you might ask it to explain the complex multi-task syntax on one line. The Assistant will then formulate a response based on the levels and positions of the case.

The Assistant returns a detailed breakdown of what the path syntax means or is doing. If you want to go further than just asking questions, you can direct the Assistant to make changes to the Source Path by switching to Edit Mode.

You can download a copy of the Micromine Artificial Intelligence Transparency Statement from the link.

For more information, see: Equipment Scheduling Assistant

 

Importing Design Layers vs. Network Layers

In the Design Data pane, you can now right-click to export a single Haulage Network layer.

This complements existing functionality which allows you to export a single Design layer.

Multiple Haulage Network layers can also be exported to an XML (*.xml) file by right-clicking on the Haulage Network Layers node (or an underlying folder) and selecting Export | Network Layers.

Note: When right-clicking to export a single layer, different file extensions may now be used to differentiate between a standard design layer (*.layer) or a haulage network layer (*.hnl). Alternatively, a generic .xml file extension may be the preferred option.

Tip: Exporting a single layer in XML (*.xml) format allows a Design layer to be imported as a Network layer and vice versa. The conversion is applied during the Import process.

Layer Type	File Filter Options
Design	Design Layer (*.layer); XML (*.xml)
Haulage Network	Network Layer (*.hnl); XML (*.xml)

 

Importing Block Model Properties

In the Design Data pane, when you right-click on a Block Model to import properties, by default the file path in the imported file and the current file path of the block model are expected to match.

In the event that the file paths do not match, the imported file path is now displayed and you will be prompted to "update the block model to use the imported file path?"

1. Click Yes to set the file path of the block model to the file path in the XML file.

2. Click No to use the current file path of the block model.

3. Click Cancel to cancel the Import process.

This simple check helps ensure an unknown file path is not inadvertently assigned to the block model.

 

Importing Block Models

In the Design Data pane, when you right-click to import a Block Model, support for the import of files in Datamine .dmx file format has been added. Improvements have also been made to the performance and accuracy of existing imports.

 

Filter Elements

On the Shape tab, in the Utility group, a new Filter Elements design action copies the design elements matching a filter expression and outputs them to a new layer.

If you write the filtered elements to an existing layer, you can either overwrite the layer or add elements to it.

This new design action may be useful as a step in Process Workflows.

 

Intersect Triangulation Sets

The Intersect Triangulations design action on the Triangulation tab, in the Split/Merge group, is now complemented by a new Intersect Triangulations Sets design action which allows one triangulation set to be intersected against another triangulation set.

This design action includes a new Set-to-Set mode, error reporting for failed pairs, performance optimizations with octree indexing, and a new user interface for selecting sets and attributes, with the ability to change their settings.

In this example, Set 1 is a fault zone cutting through seams:

In the Output layer, the red band shows where the fault zone and the seams intersect:

 

ECW Image Handling

Support for using virtual texturing (mega texturing) has now been added when rendering ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) textures on triangulations.

 

Node Grouping Expressions

In the Expression Editor, a new TableNodeGrouping constant type has been added. Constants of this type may be referenced by a new GetNodeGroupingKey function which returns the Node Grouping Key of the current node.

GetNodeGroupingKey(NodeGrouping nodeGrouping, [Node node], [string ValuefError])

Unlike the String parameter used in a previous NodeGroupingKey function, the constant is able to be re-evaluated at compile-time when the function is copied between tables.

TableNodeGroupingKey

A TableNodeGroupingKey function can also be used to return the Node Grouping Key for a specified Table, Node Grouping and Node (or the ValueIfError if an error is encountered).

TableNodeGroupingKey(String table, NodeGrouping nodeGrouping, Node node, [string ValueIfError])

New Node Grouping Aggregation functions have also been added and can be used in expressions to provide various field summaries (for the current table or a specified table).

For more information, see: Node Grouping Functions

 

Table Parameter Constants

In the Expression Editor, new data functions GetParameterValue and GetParameterRowIndex are similar to existing TableParameter functions except that they operate on the current table and are not data type specific.

In the case of the GetParameterValue function, a new TableParameterAttribute constant is able to be re-evaluated at compile-time. The return data type is resolved from the specified attribute.

If there are no Keys in the Table Parameter, you don’t need to pass in any keys. SafeValues are optional.

GetParameterValue(TableParameterAttribute, Key1, …, KeyN [, SafeValue])

In the Expression Editor, use the Options helper panel to build your expressions:

GetParameterRowIndex(TableParameter, Key1, …, KeyN [, SafeValue])

The GetParameterRowIndex function returns the index of the matched row. In the Expression Editor, use the Options helper panel to build your expressions:

 

Spreadsheet Copy/Paste Rows

In File > Settings > All Settings, a new user setting, ui_spreadsheet_paste_format, has been added to address a limitation which existed when pasting a large number of rows into a spreadsheet. The default setting is Biff12.

If the old paste behaviour is preferred, change the setting to Biff8. For more information, see: Spreadsheet Copy/Paste Format