Modifications of the BlastMetriX software

BlastMetriX version 4.9

BlastMetriX 4.9 is a major release that unites the software packages BlastMetriX 3D and BlastMetriX UAV to one simplified, comprehensive software package including all familiar features. MultiPhoto has been intensively revamped increasing the usability of individual user workflows. SurfaceTrimmer features trimming along a user adjustable plane that allows for an exact cut of the 3D model and facilitates the alignment of multiple 3D models in the Analyst software. In addition, the Fragmenter has been revised completely and appears now in a new design including a new, user configurable particle size distribution plot.

 

MultiPhoto

• New! Comprehensive redesign of the user interface for each processing step increasing the workflow and user experience
• New! Verification of input data – image information is checked for inconsistencies in the GPS measurements during loading
• New! A new integrated user interaction enables the removal of GPS information from single images and allows for an improved handling of inconsistent GPS measurements
• New! Simplified selection of the user selectable geographical co-ordinate system
• New! Extended GeoTiff exports that supports all EPSG co-ordinate systems
• Enhanced tool tips

 

SurfaceTrimmer

• New! Trimming along a user adjustable plane (Reference Plane)

 

BlastPlanner

• New! Re-designed user interface with special focus on the restructuring of the Interhole Distances dialog
• New! PDF report including analysis and colour-coded visualisation of distances between individual boreholes and rows at specific user defined heights in a plan view
• New! Extended report including Measure-While-Drilling analysis
• New! Extended generic drill pattern import that includes the diameter of the boreholes

 

Fragmenter

• New! Improved usability by a re-designed and restructured user interface
• New! Improved, user configurable particle size distribution plot
• User friendly customized fragmentation colouring

 

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.4.2

BlastMetriX UAV 4.4.2 is a service release providing following enhancements:

• Multiple improvements of data processing and user interaction
• Improvements for using multiple displays and high-resolution displays

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.4

BlastMetriX UAV 4.4 is a major release. Next to the new features for the assessment of rock mass quality from “Measure-While-Drilling” records, a major focus is set on improvements in the 3D model reconstruction and a simplified work flow in the SMX MultiPhoto. The software supports now the projection of the 3D model into common geographical coordinate systems like UTM, Gauß-Krüger and State Plane. All improvements and new features mentioned in the BMX BlastSiteGenerator3D, BMX BlastPlanner and BMX Inspector are also included in the UAV package.

General

• New! HTML and PDF version of UAV field procedures available directly in the software via the central window

 

SMX MultiPhoto

• New! Projection of the 3D model in common, user selectable geographical coordinate systems
• New! Image selection for 3D model processing directly in a 3D viewer by simplest and convenient handling with the computer mouse
• New! Enhanced processing for monitoring of rock masses – a specified region (region of interest) can be saved and imported after the coarse reconstruction that allows a repeated reconstruction of exactly the same area at different time steps
• Improved handling for the image selection during referencing by extended keyboard and mouse selection enhances the user experience
• Update and extension of the camera data base for new available drones
• “Behind the scenes”: Improvements in the coarse 3D model reconstruction

BMX BlastSiteGenerator3D

• New! DXF export of the crest and toe line of the blast site
• New! Import of delimiter positions of the blast site from a text file

 

BMX BlastPlanner

• New! Integrated rock mass quality analysis from drill monitoring data (MWD) visualized in individual plots for each borehole as well as with a colour overlay in the 3D viewer
• New! Adjustment of the discontinuity mapping (ShapeMetriX import) directly in the software
• New! User configurable export of the drill pattern according to the IREDES standard
• Import and export of georeferenced delimiters to ease final wall design and pattern adjustments
• Improvements for editing the Top Level Surface of the blast site by a multiple selection of 3D points in the 3D viewer
• Improved user interface of the measure while drilling plot enhances the usability and the user experience
• Enhanced CSV export for profiles and minimum burden data
• Layout improvements in the PDF report

BMX Inspector

• New! Calculation of the blast site volume

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.3

BlastMetriX UAV 4.3 is a major release focussing on visualisation and analysis of borehole survey data. Next to enhancements in SMX MultiPhoto, a new mode for volume estimations specially designed for underground applications is now available in the SMX VolumeCalculator. The BMX Fragmenter is available in dark theme design and has a new design with newly shaped icons.

General

• 3D navigation features using arrow key for a continuous zoom in the viewer
• Extended configuration for velocity, acceleration, pressure, force, flow, power and rotational speed in the central window settings
• Checkboxes for the visibility of 3D models in the viewer available in all software components

BMX BlastPlanner

• New! Analysis and colour-coded visualisation of distances between individual boreholes and rows at specific user defined heights in a plan view
• New! Visualisation of deviations in the drill pattern in a “Heat Map”
• New! Customized import of borehole survey data according to the IREDES standard
• New! Import and visualisation of measure while drilling (MWD) data
• New! Deviation analysis of measure while drilling data and highlighting of peculiarities and associated boreholes in the software
• New! Import of mapped discontinuities in the JMX Analyst and visualisation of intersections with boreholes in the minimum burden diagram
• Keyboard shortcut “M” for drawing mucklines
• Advanced report including MWD plots
• Specification of the drill pattern´s total area in the interhole distances dialog

BMX Inspector

• New! Analysis and colour-coded visualisation of distances between individual boreholes and rows at specific user defined heights in a plan view
• New! Visualisation of deviations in the drill pattern in a “Heat Map”
• New! Visualisation of measure while drilling (MWD) data
• New! Deviation analysis of measure while drilling data and highlighting of peculiarities and associated boreholes in the software
• New! Visualisation of mapped discontinuities in the JMX Analyst and visualisation of intersections with boreholes in the minimum burden diagram
• Specification of the drill pattern´s total area in the interhole distances dialog

SMX MultiPhoto

• New! Generation of a 3D model with reduced data density (coarse 3D model)
• Export of the coarse 3D model as “.obj”
• Enhancement for confining the reconstruction area to a region of interest by providing the coarse 3D model in the viewer  
• Configurable “.obj” export (point density, export of co-ordinates)

SMX VolumeCalculator

• New! Additional mode Underground to estimate volumes by the generation of a “watertight” mesh. The mode is specially designed for underground applications.
• Improved error analysis and warnings

BMX Fragmenter

• New! Available in dark theme mode
• Redesigned user interface with newly designed icons to fit both the original and the new dark theme design
• Features for enabling mouse navigation in the stereo view
• Specification of the total and analysed area in the report
• Improvements in editing particles

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.2

BlastMetriX UAV 4.2 is a major release with the focus set on usability and design. Besides the redesigned user interface and enhanced screen representation, the software is available in dark theme design. In addition, enhancements in the calculation of volumes have been integrated.

General

• New! Dark theme mode available for all software components
  Dark theme mode is selectable by the user in the settings. The new display mode comes with newly designed icons to fit the design for the original and the new dark theme.
• New! User interfaces have been redesigned to improve the user experience and usability
• New! 3D viewer with improved performance
  The new 3D viewer meets and exceeds the demands of large 3D models from drone imagery. It allows displaying 3D models at a higher level of detail in the surface and the photo texture without comprising performance and user interaction. It is capable to load data faster and increases the productivity of the user.
• New! 3D navigation features to rotate the 3D model from the current point of view and to orientate the 3D model from the camera view top down
• New! 3D navigation feature using Arrow keys for straight motion and Strg+Arrow keys for rotation
• New! User definable background colour for the 3D viewer
• New! Features for enabling mouse navigation in the stereo view
• New! Improvements in the command line installation
• New! Digital signature for individual software components for verifying the authenticity
• Clear arrangement of manuals in the Center Window – division in General (guidelines, field procedure,…) and Components (individual software components)

SMX SurfaceTrimmer

• New! Redesigned user interface with usability improvements

BMX BlastPlanner

• New! Interactive colour-coded visualization of distances between individual boreholes (Interhole Distances)
• New! CSV export of Interhole Distances
• New! Alternative (sequential) numbering of boreholes is available
• New! User-defined scaling of the Profiles and Minimum Burden diagram in the report (individual or uniform plot scale)
• New! Extended generic probe import of borehole trajectories from down-the-hole probes – import accepts DTH file extension
• Enhanced Minimum Burden diagram – visualization of sections beneath Muck Lines
• Improved, smooth drawing of Muck Lines

BMX Inspector

• New! PDF Report

SMX VolumeCalculator

• Improved keyboard and mouse functions for editing the volume

SMX VolumeViewer

• New! Setting of the unit – available units: mm3, m3, inch3, yd3

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.1

BlastMetriX UAV 4.1 is a major release, where the SMX MultiPhoto has been further improved and completely new referencing mechanism for 3D models has been integrated.

General

• New! Software installer including the possibility of silent installation using the command line with appropriate setup settings
• New! Digital signature for verifying the authenticity of the software
• New! Enhanced CSV import functions (new import dialog) available in the SMX Referencer, SMX Normalizer, BMX BlastSiteGenerator and BMX BlastPlanner
• Re-organized dialog for the general software settings
• Enhanced HTML manuals (paragraph numbering)
• PDF versions of the manuals available directly in the software

SMX MultiPhoto

• New! Referencing Single Point Mode: This mode transfers the 3D model to a user defined co-ordinate by a single externally surveyed point
• New! Referencing Sample Mode: This mode scales the 3D model in a local co-ordinate system (especially suitable in underground environment)
• New! CSV Import of Ground Control Points in latitude, longitude and altitude
• New! OBJ and Geo-Tiff export of the 3D model
• Improved error analysis and warnings
• Enhanced CSV import functions for Ground Control Points
• “Behind the scenes”: Improvements in the 3D model generation

SMX VolumeCalculator

• New! Automatically generated report
• New! CSV export of volumes
• New! Mass calculation by editable density

BMX BlastPlanner

• Re-designed and extended BlastPlanner report
• Re-organized, clearly arranged user interface for the drill pattern generation
• Improved automatic and optimised placement of boreholes (Minimum Burden Mode)

• Improved error analysis and warnings

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.0.2

This is a service release which includes the features outlined below.

SMX MultiPhoto

• New! Support of the BAAM Tech^™ PPK drone equipment

SMX SurfaceTrimmer

• Backward compatibility of 3D models (new feature “Export 3D model as jm3 v3.0”)

BMX BlastPlanner

• New! Display of the altitude at the borehole collar and of the floor level in the minimum burden diagram
• New! User adjustable colour scheme for the visualization of the burden situation on the 3D model

BlastMetriX UAV version 4.0

This is a major release. The MultiPhoto component has been again revamped and improved and we integrated the referencing mechanism directly into the component. This

SMX MultiPhoto

• New! Complete new referencing mechanism for 3D models including enhanced possibilities and instant quality feedback (replaces the use of the SMX Referencer component)
• New! GCP constrained optimizations and referencing of 3D models
• New! Import of GPS co-ordinates from an (ASCII) TXT file
• New! Automatic generation of a quality report for the reconstruction (PDF)
• New! Automatic generation of ortho-photos (PNG)

BMX BlastSiteGenerator3D

• Improved error analysis and warnings

SMX VolumeCalculator

• Feature enhancement in the Heap Mode – One Model (formerly Heap Mode -Reference Plane)
  • automatic positioning of bounding planes for individual heap volumes
  • boundary planes are user adjustable

BlastPlanner

• New! Re-designed user interface
• New! Minimum Burden mode (beta version) for automatic optimised placement of boreholes
• New! Exportable plan views of distances between adjacent boreholes at various depths (inter-hole distances)
• New! Move boreholes positions in respect to the profile plane
• New! Lock subdrilling for the drill pattern, individual rows or single boreholes
• New! Display of the reconstruction report of 3D models generated by SMX MultiPhoto v4.0
• New! Feature: Import designed drill pattern from CSV
• New! CSV export for minimum burden distances
• Improved volume to blast calculation by defining the first borehole to blast
• Improvement in the plan view (display of inclination, azimuth and lengths; multiple selection of boreholes)
• Improved report options (adjustable page and font sizes, information of borehole lengths and inclination)
• Improved error analysis and warnings

 

BlastMetriX UAV version 3.0.2

The software update includes:

MultiPhoto

• Improvement of surface meshing (avoid accidentially formed micro gaps in the surface mesh that have been present under some circumstances)

BlastMetriX UAV version 3.0

Improvements and new features in General, SurfaceTrimmer, and BlastPlanner are equal to BlastMetriX 3D and can be found in the corresponding release notes.

The MultiPhoto component has been extremely improved again. It computes better models with higher accuracy and it is faster than previous versions.

MultiPhoto

• Higher quality of 3D models in terms of surface point localization and coverage of data
• Faster computation
• Support of standard machines without special graphics hardware; for faster computation still NVidia © graphics cards recommended
• New matching strategy for “fast” reconstruction leading to denser models at the same computing time
• “Normal” density matching delivers much more points at the same computation time
• More information on loaded image data such as camera type or GPS information
• Automatic support of GPS information if available
• New live display during coarse model generation; it shows the actually found camera locations in a live 3D view while adding new cameras
• A custom set of loaded images can be selected/deselected for the reconstruction process
• Changing the project name also changes the name of the 3D model accordingly
• Region of interest supports straight lines as well as arbitrary shapes
• Several new cameras added to camera data base

 

BlastSiteGenerator 3D

• The combination of aerial and terrestrial 3D images better detects redundant points

 

BlastMetriX UAV version 2.1

MultiPhoto

• Higher quality of 3D image reconstruction.

• New! Automatic continuation of reconstruction (dense reconstruction is automatically launched after coarse reconstruction after a user-defined time).
• New! Three different reconstruction modes (Fast, Normal, High).
• New! User-defined limit of generated points for the final reconstruction.
• New! User-defined stereo set-ups can be added to an existing 3D reconstruction.
• New! 3D model view for a better localization of the reference images.

BoreholeFinder New Software Component!

• Defines and edits borehole collar positions on reconstructed 3D images; collars can be directly loaded into BlastPlanner.

Normalizer

• Reference points are saved in the correct subimage and are shown again after loading.
  Note: Reference points from previous versions are no longer imported.

General

• BlastMetriX 3D is released with 64-bit applications only.
• A dongle update is required (for most users) before installing BMX 4.1 in order to apply all new functions to the software.
• Drastic improvement of 3D mesh generation.
• Better handling of operations that require administrator privileges (e.g. installation of license or calibration data)
• Multiple calibration files can be installed and removed at once.
• New! Multiple connected dongles are supported.
• New! Option to set the displayed texture resolution for the 3D viewer.
• New!  Backup/restore functionality for license data.
• New! ‘Clean up’ button for removing temporary data (only if 3GSM cache directories are found).

SurfaceTrimmer

• More feedback during trimming.

BlastPlanner

• The description of the Blast Site can be edited directly from the printing/exporting dialog.
• The set borehole inclination is saved.
• Even rows in staggered drill patterns (row shift bigger than 0) no longer extend beyond the width of the first row.
• Azimuth of boreholes is displayed as 0-360° (older versions: -180; +180°).
• New! Importing borehole rows from “.csv” files allows to add boreholes to the existing drill pattern (previous versions: an existing drill pattern was exclusively replaced).
• New! Rows can be added to an existing drill pattern.