Processing large amounts of data can be avoided and is completely unnecessary if you model intelligently by incorporating geological and structural geological knowledge in the modelling process.
However, I’ve been teaching geologists how to avoid processing large datasets in Leapfrog Mining and how to use techniques that circumvent this requirement. All this results in extra processing, requires time, and is particularly challenging with larger datasets. Local interpolation methods are computer intensive, they require local searches of data points (not needed in global interpolation), and the patchwork of results have to be stitched and blended together. A local interpolator also can’t handle hundreds of thousands of points easily. However, it’s now 2013 and local interpolators are beginning to catch up to FastRBF’s performance.īut using a local interpolator is slower than using Leapfrog. It is highly efficient, and, as far as I am aware, still does not have a direct competitor in the market.
It takes an entire point dataset and comes up with an interpolation result that resembles a local interpolation. FastRBF is the clever 3D interpolator within Leapfrog that no other company has been able to replicate. (Note: Farfield Technology Ltd and ARANZ Geo Ltd are subsidiaries of ARANZ Ltd, which owns the intellectual property for FastRBF.) This website of Farfield Technology, is pretty much unchanged since I discovered the existence of FastRBF back in 2001 when I searched the internet for ‘RBF Interpolation’. The main difference between version 1 of Leapfrog which came out in 2003 and Micromine’s new implicit modeller is that Micromine’s implicit modeller uses a local-not global-interpolator.įastRBF, which is the original interpolation engine of Leapfrog (v.1), was developed by ARANZ Ltd and is still available from Farfield Technology. Until late 2012, there were no competitors to these unique products that used mathematical functions to model geological data.
Geomodeller, or ‘3DWEG’ as it was known then, was the only other implicit modeller on the market it was also released about the same time as Leapfrog. The Leapfrog Mining product was designed based on my vision it was released as commercial software in December 2003. How do I know that Micromine’s implicit modeller is a true competitor to Leapfrog software? Because I came up with the Leapfrog implicit modelling concept in 2001. Micromine is the second generalised mining product (GMP) company to release a compelling implicit modelling competitor to Leapfrog (Micromine was beaten by Mintec Inc’s MineSight by a few months I’ll discuss MineSight’s product in another ‘first looks’ post like this one). So, what about Micromine’s implicit modeller? Do they have the real thing, or are they pretending, like Geovia?Īdvantage 1: Micromine’s implicit modeller is the real deal, not marketing hype. As I said previously, Geovia may be able to pull this off with their mighty marketing budget. Nevertheless, Geovia seems to believe that Dynamic Shells can compete as an alternative to Leapfrog. But this doesn’t make Dynamic Shells an implicit modeller, which has infinite resolution. This is an impressive feat and those who use Dynamic Shells say this is the best thing about the recent versions of Gems. What Geovia has been able to do is compress conventional block models into very small objects that take up little space. Consumers would be well-advised to look into Geovia’s claims before they open their wallets. Some of my contacts who use Geovia products (Gems and Surpac) have confirmed that, despite Geovia’s marketing language and spin, Dynamic Shells is NOT based on the implicit method of modelling-as I had suspected. There are six compelling reasons why Micromine’s implicit modelling software should be successful.Īll these reasons are equally important, but before I get to them, I’ll briefly comment on ‘Dynamic Shells’ from Gemcom (now Geovia), following up on an earlier post about that software. Those who are only occasional users of Leapfrog will finally have a choice other than ARANZ Geo products and I predict that many will choose Micromine’s product over Leapfrog software. For the consumer (especially the Micromine user who is also a current Leapfrog user), these are exciting times. What I saw was quite impressive, so I asked myself: Will Micromine’s implicit modeller be a market winner? From what I saw, I expect it will be popular, but only time will tell. Micromine invited me to their office and gave me a preview of their implicit modelling product before its release.