Roads in MineSight
Considerations in Setting Up A Road
• The road should go to your intended destination
– You need to zoom in an zoom out enough to go to your
destination
• Directness and Straightness of the route usually has some
balance with cut and fill
– Natural topography is usually not shaped like a road
– You can try following the terrain to minimize any cut and fill
• May save you money on road building
• But it can lengthen your truck haul
• And maybe put turns in that will slow you down.
• Grade – The direction of the road will usually control its
grade
– How steep do you want your road to be
– Might also pertain to a conveyor belt travelway
Once Upon a Time it was desired to
move material by truck from A to B
A
B
One Could Go Up the Valley Without
Too Much Trouble
Of course getting up onto that
Darn mountain top will be less
fun.
Of Course the Shortest Distance
Between Two Points is a Straight Line
And if I do that much Cut
And fill I also know the
Shortest distance into my
Wallet.
Need to Make a Decision
• I will go up the valley
– Perhaps do some cut when I get to the end of the
valley
– Then I may have to wind around to get to the
mountain top.
Basic Process of Laying Down a Road in
MineSight
• Lay down a polyline for the center of the road
• Attach a template for the road width and any
necessary fill if the road needs to be built up
• Do the same thing if the road needs to be cut
in
• Use surfaces intersect tools to imprint the
haulroad onto your surface
– And to create solids used to measure cut and fill
volumes.
My First Move
• I want MineSight to tell me the percentage
grade of my road segments as a lay out the
polyline center of the road
– I will make this happen by playing with settings
Prepping Settings for My Work
Pick the Status
Bar Tab
Go to Project Settings
Set it to measure your dip in % rather than degrees
(we usually measure % grade for roads)
What Is the Status Bar?
Its that bar of numbers, coordinates, and stuff located at the bottom of a viewer
Window.
Next I Will Set My Snap
Set to Snap to an Elevation
Now turn off my surface leaving my surface
Contours to snap to.
I Now Begin Laying Out My Center Line
Note that as I click (but don’t
Release) for the next point on the
Polyline it snaps to the contour
Elevation and gives me the road
Slope as I move the end point
Around looking for a slope I can
Live with.
(in this case I want to keep it under
10%)
I Get A Route
The slopes on this route
Range from just over 6%
To 11.7%
(I tried to avoid cutting into
Or filling into contours as
They turned)
One might need to try
Several times to get a route
They are happy with.
My Unhappy Switch Back Problem
I do have to hard switch backs
(I can do a little smoothing of
My road center polyline).
I Did This With a Simple Polyline
Smooth
1- Make new selection
Pick the polyline
2- Polyline menu
Select smooth
3- follow instructions
To reselect
4- Preview to make
Sure you are happy
5- Ok the action and
Save.
We Now Prepare to Attach a Template
on the Polyline
If we need to fill then the fill will slope down
From the edge of the road to the land below.
Of course it’s the opposite if we are cutting.
Lets Get Our Template Ready to
Represent This
Pull up the Template
Editor
The Editor Window Pops Up
Here is a road build up projecting down to
A surface somewhere below.
Setting Up Our Template
I pick my road width – in this case 30 meters
(the project I’m working on is in metric units)
My height was 100 meters – this is probably high
But I will cut it off with my natural ground surface
My angle pick is 20 degrees – it gives me just under
3 units of run per unit of rise. It may be a little
Idealistic but if I can work it it will be quite stable
I want my base point at the top (the fill projects down
From my road center polyline) {note that bottom is
The default most of the time}.
Select the Polyline
Go to the Surface Menu
Pick Create
On the side menu select
Attach template along polyline
I’m Not Sure About Round One
The slope is burying the road
Down slope by my switch backs.
My Solution – Split the Road
Select the Road Polyline
Activate the split and
Then click on the points
Where you want to
split
Use Query to confirm the split
Attach the 20 degree outslope to the
Polyline on Flatter Ground
Make A Slightly Steeper Outslope and
Attach to the Middle Line Segment
Trying a Steeper Slope for the
Mountain Area
As can be seen,
Sometimes the road
Route does not work
Out well.
A Little Move and Smooth Gets Us In
the Groove
Turning On Surfaces We Can See the
Fill Area
We will now
Activate the
Intersect
Surfaces tool
Activate the Intersect Surfaces Tool
Use the Blue Worm – Select Your Topo Surface
as Primary, Your 3 fills as Secondary
Select Merged Surface and Fill
We Have The Fill Part Done
I used a new
Active
Edit object
For my
Surface with
Fill.
I Will Set Up a Cut Template
I will select that I will cut into the ground
I will keep my road width and template height
Since I am cutting into rock I can probably use
A steeper slope with cut than fill
Notice I have an issue with my “base point”.
I need the template to attach to the road centerline
There – That’s More Like It
Attaching the Template Lets Us See the
Cut Areas
Intersect Surfaces Again –
This time with a Cut Surface Option
And We Now Have a Road
Checking for Problems
We have an area where
The cut dud not work
Well.
What Went Wrong
Note we have places
Where the turn surface
Projected above other
Cut surfaces causing only
The higher cut surface
To work.
See Where the Shadowing Effect of the
Double Surface Worked.
Things to Try
• Not making template so tall
• Breaking line into segments so that the
template does not cross itself
• And no I’m not going to do that here
• We will however learn to measure the cut and
fill.
Pick the New and Original Surface
Ask for a solid between the two
Define it as a cut surface
Or A Fill Surface
You End Up With Solids that Can Be
Querried for Volume
Notes
• These notes do not cover all the times I made
geometry objects, put things in Edit mode, or
turned geometry objects off or on
– It is assumed you know these things
• They do not attempt to cover all issues and
problems that could come up
– Although some examples are covered
– Warning – switch backs in roads can create problems
if the road center polylines are not broken into
segments at such turns (you saw one such example in
these slides).