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 thatDarn mountain top will be less fun.

Of Course the Shortest Distance Between Two Points is a Straight Line

And if I do that much CutAnd fill I also know theShortest distance into myWallet.

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

Go to Project Settings

Pick the Status Bar Tab

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 viewerWindow.

Next I Will Set My Snap

Set to Snap to an Elevation

Now turn off my surface leaving my surfaceContours to snap to.

I Now Begin Laying Out My Center Line

Note that as I click (but don’tRelease) for the next point on thePolyline it snaps to the contourElevation and gives me the roadSlope as I move the end pointAround looking for a slope I canLive with.(in this case I want to keep it under10%)

I Get A Route

The slopes on this routeRange from just over 6%To 11.7%(I tried to avoid cutting intoOr filling into contours asThey turned)

One might need to trySeveral times to get a routeThey are happy with.

My Unhappy Switch Back Problem

I do have to hard switch backs(I can do a little smoothing ofMy road center polyline).

I Did This With a Simple Polyline Smooth

1- Make new selectionPick the polyline

2- Polyline menuSelect smooth

3- follow instructionsTo reselect

4- Preview to makeSure you are happy

5- Ok the action andSave.

We Now Prepare to Attach a Template on the Polyline

If we need to fill then the fill will slope downFrom 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 TemplateEditor

The Editor Window Pops Up

Here is a road build up projecting down toA 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 highBut I will cut it off with my natural ground surface

My angle pick is 20 degrees – it gives me just under3 units of run per unit of rise. It may be a littleIdealistic but if I can work it it will be quite stable

I want my base point at the top (the fill projects downFrom my road center polyline) {note that bottom isThe default most of the time}.

Select the Polyline

Go to the Surface Menu

Pick Create

On the side menu selectAttach template along polyline

I’m Not Sure About Round One

The slope is burying the roadDown slope by my switch backs.

My Solution – Split the Road

Select the Road Polyline

Activate the split andThen click on the pointsWhere you want tosplit 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 roadRoute does not workOut well.

A Little Move and Smooth Gets Us In the Groove

Turning On Surfaces We Can See the Fill Area

We will nowActivate theIntersectSurfaces 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 newActiveEdit objectFor mySurface withFill.

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 heightSince I am cutting into rock I can probably useA 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 whereThe cut dud not workWell.

What Went Wrong

Note we have placesWhere the turn surfaceProjected above otherCut surfaces causing onlyThe higher cut surfaceTo 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).