Discover

Integrated GIS for the Geosciences Users Guide

Encom Technology Pty Ltd Leaders in Exploration Software and Services

General Information
Discover 4.0 is developed and supported by Encom Technology Pty Ltd. Sydney Office Level 2, 118 Alfred St, Milsons Point, New South Wales 2061, Australia PO Box 422, Milsons Point, New South Wales 1565, Australia Tel +61 2 9957 4117 Fax +61 2 9922 6141 Gosford Office Suite 5, 451 Pacific Hwy, North Gosford, New South Wales, 2250, Australia Tel: +61 2 4325 7807 Fax: +61 2 4325 7807 Perth Office Level 1, 43 Ventnor Ave, West Perth, Western Australia 6005, Australia PO Box 1572, West Perth, Western Australia 6872, Australia Tel +61 8 9321 1788 Fax +61 8 9321 1799 World Wide Web www.encom.com.au Email [email protected] Discover Release History

Version 1.0 Version 1.1 Version 1.2 Version 2.0 Version 2.1 Version 3.0 Version 4.0

December 1994 February 1995 September 1995 August 1996 November 1997 February 1999 June 2001

Discover 4.0 requires MapInfo Professional 4.2 or later with Windows 95/98 or Windows NT/2000 Some advanced features of Discover 4.0 require MapInfo Professional 5.5 or later. Copyright 2001, Encom Technology Pty Ltd

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Table of Contents 1 i Introduction 1 Introducing Discover 4.0 ........................................................................1 Whats New in Discover 4.0 ...................................................................1 About this Users Guide..........................................................................3 Reference Manual and On-line Help .......................................................3 Conventions Used in this Manual............................................................7 Obtaining Help .......................................................................................8 System Requirements .............................................................................8 Discover User Interface ..........................................................................8 Configuration 11 Discover Setup From a CD-ROM .........................................................11 Discover Setup From the Web ..............................................................11 Installation of Discover .........................................................................11 About Discover and AutoLoad..............................................................13 Configuring Discover ...........................................................................13 Running Discover on a Network ...........................................................14 Enhanced Layer Control 15 Enabling and Disabling the ELC ...........................................................15 Introducing the ELC .............................................................................16 ELC Options.........................................................................................17 Layer Controls ......................................................................................18 Assigning Layers to Groups..................................................................21 Creating Groups and Adding Layers .....................................................23 Map Making 27 Making a Map with Scaled Output........................................................27 Scaled Frames and Titleblocks ..............................................................30 Generating a Legend for a Geology Map...............................................30 Adding Geological Annotation to Linework..........................................30 Adding Vector Fill Patterns to Polygons ...............................................31 Attributing and Colouring Map Objects ................................................32 Colouring Maps from a Look-up Table .................................................32 Map Labelling Tools.............................................................................33 Data Processing and Visualization 35

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Linked Document Display.................................................................... 35 Displaying Attribute Data in Graphs .................................................... 36 Displaying Structural Measurements .................................................... 37 Coordinate and Grid Functions............................................................. 37 Transforming Geochemical Data.......................................................... 38 Data Query Tools................................................................................. 38 6 Object Editing 39 Creating Objects from Coordinate Descriptions.................................... 39 Attributing Map Objects whilst Digitizing............................................ 40 Modifying Polylines............................................................................. 40 Building Polygons ............................................................................... 41 Drillhole Display 43 Overview ............................................................................................. 43 Displaying Drillhole Data .................................................................... 44 Data Formats and Data Sources............................................................ 44 Displaying a Section or Plan ................................................................ 47 Displaying Downhole Data .................................................................. 47 Viewing Sections in the Layout Window.............................................. 49 Drillhole Log Display .......................................................................... 50 Calculating Sectional Resources........................................................... 51 Data Validation.................................................................................... 51 Data Compositing ................................................................................ 52 Surface Creation and Analysis 53 Overview ............................................................................................. 53 What is a Surface Grid ......................................................................... 54 Configuring Grid File Formats ............................................................. 55 Creating a Gridded Surface .................................................................. 56 Contouring a Surface ........................................................................... 57 Surface Profile over a Grid or Contour Plan ......................................... 58 Querying Grids .................................................................................... 59 Merging and Clipping Grids................................................................. 60 Changing the Appearance of Grids....................................................... 60 Registering Grid Files Created Externally ............................................ 61 Points to Regions (Voronoi Polygons).................................................. 61 Miscellaneous Tools 63 Table Utilities ...................................................................................... 64 Metadata Tools .................................................................................... 64

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10 11 12 13

Map Making Tutorial Dataset Building Tutorial Create and Analyse Surfaces Tutorial

67 77 87

3D Display of Grid Data Tutorial 95 An Exercise in Grid Display and 3D Map Creation ...............................95 GeoTiff Registration and 3D Map Display............................................99 Drillhole Display Tutorial 103 Preparing Data prior to Viewing Drillholes .........................................104 Creating Sections................................................................................106 Index 115

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Introduction

Introduction
Introducing Discover 4.0
Discover version 4.0 is an extension to MapInfo Professional specifically developed for geoscientists by Encom Technology. Discover 4.0 runs with MapInfo Professional version 4.2 or later on Windows 95/98 and Windows NT/2000. Building on the many powerful Geographic Information System (GIS) features of MapInfo, Discover converts MapInfo into a sophisticated and easy to use tool for managing, manipulating and displaying exploration datasets. Discover gives users the ability to process and view data in ways that previously required a number of software packages. A geologist in the field, an exploration manager in head office or a draftsperson in a regional office can use Discover to track tenement activity, contour point data, view drill holes in plan and section, analyze geochemical data, facilitate map creation, produce scaled hard copy output with ease, and more. Discover 4.0 provides new and improved functionality in a number of key areas and incorporates a significant number of changes requested by existing Discover users.

Whats New in Discover 4.0

Enhanced Layer Control
A powerful new feature of Discover 4.0 is the Enhanced Layer Control which allows you to control multiple map windows at the same time. The drawing order of layers can be changed by dragging and dropping one or multiple layers. The Enhanced Layer Control is a persistent control. Once activated, it remains visible on your desktop and you can move and resize it as you please. To assist with you organizing your map windows, layers can be assigned aliases and can be grouped independently of their drawing order.

Discover Users Guide

Map Making and Other Tools

Long file naming has been implemented for map and layout lists. Text box placement in the Layout Window has been implemented. Various improvements to the title block and legend have been made. GraphMap can now display stereogram cyclographic traces for large dip values.

Surface Creation and Analysis

Discover has been extended to read, write and display the four most commonly used grid formats. Support is now provided for: BIL (Band InterLeaved), ER Mapper, Geosoft and MapInfo. Note: ER Mapper grids can now be registered using ERS header file information. The MapInfo 3D surface rendering function can now be used with all supported grid formats. Displays can incorporate vector, image and map drapes. Contouring is available for all grid formats. Enhancements have been made for grid arithmetic (add, subtract grids, calculate slope, aspect). Surface triangulation can now support in excess of 25,000 input points. Support is now provided for grid registration of ChrisDBF-generated ER Mapper files.

Table Utilities
Individual tables can be checked and modified in a workspace using the Workspace Editor. The Alter Map Bounds utility now asks for confirmation before permanently removing data.

General
An improved installation procedure includes support for Windows 2000.

Introduction

Discover is now compatible with MapInfo Professional version 4.2 through 6.5 (released mid-2001). Tutorials have been updated. On-line help has been updated and redesigned.

About this Users Guide

This Users Guide describes new and existing features in this version of Discover and supersedes earlier Discover manuals. The Users Guide contains an overview of functions in Discover together with a set of tutorials that demonstrate the major features of Discover. This Users Guide applies to Discover 4.0 only. Encom Technology has taken care to ensure that the information presented here is accurate but reserves the right to alter Discover at any time. This is not a MapInfo manual and knowledge of MapInfo Professional is required for Discover to be used to its best advantage. We recommend that you refer to the MapInfo Professional Reference and MapInfo Professional Users Guide for further information on using MapInfo.

Reference Manual and On-line Help

For more detailed information on specific aspects of Discover, you are encouraged to refer to the Discover on-line help and the Discover Reference Manual, both accessed from the MapInfo Help menu. Using the Electronic Reference Manual The Discover Reference Manual is in the form of PDF files (Portable Document Files) which can be viewed on-screen, or once displayed, can be printed in part or in full. To view or print the files, a software program called Adobe Acrobat Reader is provided. The installation of this software (as well as the Reference Manual Files) is an option provided during the installation process of Discover. The Acrobat Reader software is written and supplied by Adobe Systems, Inc. Although supplied with the Discover software, Acrobat Reader is also available (at no cost) from the Adobe Internet web site (www.adobe.com). In the event that the software or PDF files are not installed with Discover, they can be accessed directly from the CD-ROM as PDF files.

Discover Users Guide

Using Adobe Acrobat Reader

Execute Acrobat Reader with any of the following procedures: 1. Select the Acrobat Reader program from the Windows Start button and choose the Programs>Adobe Acrobat item. 2. Create a desktop icon of the program and double click it to execute. This option is best achieved by using Windows Explorer, navigating to the Adobe Reader program and dragging the executable file to the Desktop. For additional information on this procedure, refer to the Windows Operating Guide. 3. Windows Explorer can be used to navigate to the CD-ROM or on the hard disk if installed (see above). Double click on Discover Reference Manual PDF. To Open a Topic The Reference Manual has a number of indexed topic headings that can be used to find and navigate through the documentation. The topics can be displayed by selecting the bookmark button. To open a topic, either click the bookmark name (the cursor becomes a hand with a finger), or double-click the page icon to the left of the bookmark name (the cursor becomes an arrow). Click the triangle to the left of a bookmark to show or hide any subordinate bookmarks. An alternative method to move to a topic is to select a heading from the Table of Contents at the beginning of the Manual. Within the document, links to other locations in the Manual are marked by a green outline. Links can be selected by placing the cursor over the outline and moving to the new location by clicking the left mouse button. To Return to a Topic To return to a topic, either click Go Back (or choose Go Back from the Edit menu), or click on the bookmark name of the previous topic. Browsing Through Individual Topics You can review the information contained in one topic using the browse buttons. As you browse, you can reduce or magnify the view of a page using the Zoom button. There are several buttons on the Acrobat toolbar that you can use to navigate within a topic:

Introduction

Displays the first page (screen) of the topic. Displays the previous page of the topic. Displays the next page of the topic. Displays the last page of the topic. Use the browse buttons to navigate in multi-page topics; click a bookmark to move to another topic. To Browse Through Information 1. Open the topic you want to browse. The simplest method of doing this is to select it from the Table of Contents. 2. Click on the toolbar to advance through the topic page by page. Alternatively, click the Right Arrow key on the keyboard. If you lose your place (or if youve changed the zoom level and you want to return to the on the toolbar. For more details previous page view), you can click about browsing through topics, choose the Help menu from Acrobat Reader. How to Find an Item All topics in the Reference Manuals are searchable, so you can perform full-text searches throughout. You can quickly search for and locate words, parts of words, and phrases in all the chapter topics. 1. 2. in the toolbar or choose Find To open the Find Dialog Box click on from the Tools menu. You can alternatively type CTRL+F on the keyboard. In the Acrobat Reader Find dialog box, enter the word, word fragment, or phrase for which you want to search.

Note

If youre doing a phrase search, do not use commas when entering the phrase. Acrobat Find interprets a comma as an or . If you entered, Send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee it would look for all occurrences containing either Send not for whom the bell tolls or it tolls for thee.

Discover Users Guide

3.

Check the options you want to apply to the search.

Magnifying and Reducing the Page View You can use the zoom tools or the magnification box in the status bar to magnify or reduce the page view (zoom level). Changes that you make to the zoom level are applied throughout the topic. The topic remains at the zoom level you specified until you change the level. To Magnify or Reduce the Page View Select the Zoom button and click on the page to increase the magnification. To interactively zoom out, click the zoom button and press the CTRL key while the Zoom cursor is displayed. You can magnify a page up to 1200-1600% (depending on screen resolution) and reduce it to 12% of its normal size. To Magnify or Reduce a Selected Area Using the zoom-in tool or zoom-out tool, drag the mouse to select the area you want to magnify or reduce. If you use the zoom-in tool, the page view expands to show just the area within the rectangle. If you use the zoom-out tool, the page view shrinks to fit within the rectangle. You can also click the magnification box on the status bar and choose a magnification level from the menu, or choose one of the page view options: Fit Page in Window scales the page to fit within the main window Fit Width scales the page to fit the width of the main window Fit Visible fills the window with the pages imaged area only (text and graphics) Other sets the magnification to the level entered in the Zoom To dialog box.

Images Displayed On-Screen At certain levels of magnification the images used in the PDF on-screen displays do not appear clear. This appearance is due to the number of pixels used in the requested zoom level being inappropriate for the resolution of the captured bitmap image. In all cases, increasing the zoom level overcomes this problem.

Introduction

Printing Information
You can print your documents using Acrobat. Before printing a topic, however, make sure youve set the print options you want in the Print Setup dialog box (choose Print Setup from the File menu). To Print a Topic 1. Choose Print from the File menu. 2. In the Print dialog box, choose the options you want. Acrobat offers two options that are specific to printing your topics: Shrink to Fit reduces and rotates (if necessary) oversized pages to fit the paper size currently installed on your printer PostScript Options are located in the Print dialog box if youre using a PostScript printer. If your printer supports PostScript Level 2, the Level 2 option speeds printing. If youre using the Adobe PSPrinter driver, the driver automatically selects the appropriate PostScript option for your printer, and these options are not displayed in the Print dialog box.

WARNING

Different print drivers produce varying quality of image reproduction. In all cases, Postscript printers produce best quality image prints from the bitmaps contained in the supplied PDF files. For lower resolution printers (say, 300 dpi or lower) the print quality is degraded. High resolution printers, especially laserjet printers, produces acceptable print quality.

Conventions Used in this Manual

The following conventions are used throughout this manual: Keys on the keyboard appear in small capital letters. For example, the Ctrl key appears as CTRL in the text. Menu options and dialog items are in bold normal text. For example, choose File>Run MapBasic Program. Buttons to be pressed are in bold normal text. For example: click the Remove Entry button Text to be entered from the keyboard is shown in Letter Gothic.

Discover Users Guide

References to other sections in the documentation are italicized. For example: see the Data Utilities section.

Obtaining Help
If you need to contact product support for Discover please have the following details available. Licence Number (shown in the Discover>About Discover dialog eg. 4001121). MapInfo Version (shown in the Help>About MapInfo dialog eg. 5.50) A full description of the problem or query. This should include any system messages (from Discover, MapInfo or the operating system) and other pertinent information detailing the circumstances.

Select the Discover Technical Support item from the Help menu to generate a form that can be emailed or faxed to Encom Technology. Contact details are: Email World Wide Web: Telephone Fax [email protected] www.encom.com.au +61 3 9524 4915 +61 3 9533 0234

If you experience any problems with Discover, or have suggestions or comments, Encom Technology would be pleased to hear from you.

System Requirements
Discover has no additional system requirements beyond that required to run MapInfo 4.2 or later. Discover 4.0 runs on Windows 95/98, Windows NT 3.51/4.0, and Windows 2000 but not on Windows 3.11. MapInfo and Discover 4.0 are best used with a video resolution of 800 x 600 or better.

Discover User Interface

Discover adds a new menu and a new set of buttons to the MapInfo interface. As the mouse is placed over each menu option or button, a message is displayed

Introduction

in the Status Bar (at the bottom left corner of the MapInfo screen) with a short description of what that item does.

The Discover Menu that is added to the MapInfo menu bar

The Discover 4.0 interface includes a number of button bars. The button bars available are: Main Main functions of Discover such as Scaled Output Map Window Map window tools such as select by graphical style Map Making Map making tools such as text labels and see-thru shades Object Editing Object editing functions such as line cut and smoothing.

These button bars are available at any time. There are also module specific button bars for drillhole display, surface creation and analysis and graphmap that are displayed when those modules are run.

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Discover Users Guide

Discovers button bars Main Map Window, Object Editing and Map Making

Discover Button bars Drillhole Display, GraphMap and Surfaces

Each of the button bars can be shown or hidden using commands from the Discover menu, or from the MapInfo toolbar dialog (right-click on the button bar or select the MapInfo Options>Toolbar menu item). The positions of the button bars are automatically saved when you exit Discover. When you next load Discover, the button bars are correctly positioned.

Configuration

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Configuration
Discover Setup From a CD-ROM
Place the supplied Encom software CD in the CD-ROM drive and wait a few seconds. The CD-ROM should register with your computer automatically and present an installation menu list. To load the Discover software, press the Install Discover 4.0 button. Once selected, the menu automatically executes the SETUP.EXE file as described in Installation of Discover.

Note

In the event that the CD-ROM does not autoload, you may need to execute the program SETUP.EXE in the top level directory of the CD-ROM or double click on the SETUP.EXE file in the DISCOVER directory.

Discover Setup From the Web

Discover 4.0 can be provided in a condensed form from the Encom web site (www.encom.com.au). Due to storage considerations and for fast downloading, the web distribution of the software is not as complete as supplied on the CDROM. Certain components such as documentation and tutorial files are reduced in content. To download the Discover 4.0 installation file, open the web site and access the Download item. A form is required to be filled in before the download can commence. Discover components are described prior download and their size is shown. Once the installation files are available, you can install the software and its components by locating in Explorer and double clicking to initiate the installation procedure. Licensing procedures are identical for both Web or CDROM installation (see Installation of Discover).

Installation of Discover
Before installing Discover 4.0, you should ensure that MapInfo Professional (version 4.2 or later) is installed on your system. Discover 4.0 does not work with older versions of MapInfo. To install MapInfo on your computer, follow the procedure detailed in the MapInfo manuals.

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Discover Users Guide

As the installation program for Discover (SETUP.EXE) proceeds, a number of options are presented to you. Initially, acknowledgement and acceptance of the Encom Users Licence Agreement must be made. We recommend you read the details of this Agreement since it limits your personal and corporate use of the software. Discover 4.0 requires an Encom licence to operate. Supplied with your software distribution should be a diskette containing a Discover 4.0 licence file or a licence file may have been issued to you by Encom Technology (via email etc). This file must be available for the installation to proceed further. Note If you are updating to Discover Version 4.0 and a previous version exists on the computer, you can rename the installation directory. By default, the directory containing the previous installation is renamed Discover_Old. Discover version 4 is then by default installed into a new Discover directory. As a precaution, you can also request previous configuration files be available in the new Discover\Config installation directory. These files may be project, style library files, colour look-up tables and shade files created by you in previous projects. Saving these files is the recommended default. After registering the licence file, other installation options are provided: Tutorials (and data totalling approximately 4.8 Mbytes are supplied) Metadata Manager is used for managing metadata. Metadata is information that relates to datasets and describes some characteristics of it (such as audit trails, projects or projection information). Spatial Catalogue is a program to manage a database table that contains an entry for each MapInfo table and which lists both geographic and table attributes (such as the coordinate system or the number of rows etc). Tenement Data is used for exploration area searches and applications. Only Australian state tenement data is provided with the installation. Adobe Acrobat Reader is used to display and review documents (for example, the tutorials or Discover Reference Manual).

You can also specify configuration paths (refer to Configuring Discover) for the various options. Please call product support if you experience any problems installing Discover. Once you have installed Discover, you should read the file README.TXT for any late-breaking information that has not been included in this manual.

Configuration

13

Should you need to uninstall Discover, select Discover 4.0 from Add/Remove Programs item in the Windows Control Panel, or run the program UNWISE.EXE from the Discover installation directory.

About Discover and AutoLoad

Once Discover has been installed, it should automatically load each time MapInfo is run. If you have exited Discover and need to re-run it, choose the MapInfo File>Run MapBasic Program menu option, and select the file DISCOVER.MBX from the Discover installation directory. If you do not wish to have Discover loaded each time you run MapInfo, choose the AutoLoad button from the Discover>About Discover menu option. Choose the Discover>About Discover menu option to check that the licensing information is correct. The organization to which this copy of Discover is licensed is also displayed in the title bar of the MapInfo application window. Encom suggests that you leave AutoLoad Discover set on, so that it loads every time MapInfo is run. Autoloading Discover imposes little in the way of memory or performance overheads on MapInfo and means that Discover is always instantly available.

Configuring Discover
At installation time, you must specify three main paths for Discover for the location of program files, configuration files and temporary files. See Appendix B of the Discover Reference Manual for more information on the files installed by Discover. The Discover Program Files Directory is where DISCOVER.MBX and associated program files are stored. Some MapInfo tables required by Discover are also stored here. This directory can be read-only. The Discover Configuration Directory stores tables and text files containing settings for various Discover functions. The files and tables in this directory are written to by Discover so the directory must not be read-only. For single-user installations of Discover, this directory can be the same as the Program Files Directory. The Discover Temporary Directory is used for storing temporary tables and must not be read-only. This directory can be the same as the Windows temporary directory, or may be a separate directory.

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Discover Users Guide

You may view and edit the configuration settings at any time by selecting the Discover>Configuration menu option. Whilst Encom suggests that you follow the directory structure suggested at installation time, you can easily alter the directory structure after installation by using the Configuration screen. Previous versions of Discover (prior version 3.0) stored the configuration information in a file called ENCOM.CFG. This information is now stored in a file called DISCOVER.INI in the main Discover directory. DISCOVER.INI should not be edited.

Running Discover on a Network

If you are running MapInfo and Discover on a network, the directories containing the MapInfo and Discover software may be read-only (that is, they may be write-protected to ensure there is no accidental data loss). In this instance, you need to set the Discover Temporary directory and Discover Configuration directory to ones that are not read-only. This allows Discover to write configuration and temporary files as required.

Enhanced Layer Control

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Enhanced Layer Control

Discover 4.0 provides you with a new, flexible and powerful way of working with Map Windows and layers. The Enhanced Layer Control (ELC) allows you to manage multiple Map Windows from a single control. Layers can be organized in natural groupings that can be independent of their display order and aliases can be used to provide a more natural and consistent naming of data. Multiple layers can be selected and operated on simultaneously. The ELC also provides complete control over the standard layer attributes such as editability, visibility and label display.

Enabling and Disabling the ELC

When you first load Discover, the ELC is displayed in a floating window that you can position and resize as required. If you want to remove it, click on the X in the top right hand corner of the window. To restore it, select the ELC button from the Discover toolbar. If you want to disable the ELC altogether you can do so by deselecting the Use Enhanced Layer Control option in the Discover>Configuration menu item. Refer to Configuring Discover for additional information. The figure below serves to demonstrate some of the key features of the ELC. Note that the ELC displays information as a two-level hierarchy. The top level describes the Map Windows and the second level describes the layers contained within them.

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Discover Users Guide

Introducing the ELC

Visible Layer Name Pickable Zoom to Layer Editable Label

Map Window Layer

Apply Changes

Refresh Grouped View

ELC Options Zoom Previous

An ELC controlling 3 open Map Windows and their associated layers,

Enhanced Layer Control

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In a similar fashion to Windows Explorer, you can expand or contract the tree by clicking on the + or sign to the left of each Map Window. This has no effect on your data it is just for your convenience. If, for example, you are currently working with Area A Prospect 2 you may find it convenient to collapse Area A Prospect 1 and Area 2 thus:

Example of Enhanced Layer Control with compressed Map Window trees.

ELC Options
You can control the general characteristics of the ELC. For example, you can indicate whether you want the ELC to appear automatically whenever Discover is activated. You can also indicate whether you want the ELC to display layer information for all open Map Windows or just the current Map Window. These general characteristics can be set either by clicking on the Options button at the bottom of the ELC or by selecting the Options item on the pop-up that appears when you right click on a Map Window name or layer name in the ELC. When you do this, the following dialog is displayed:

Enhanced Layer Control options dialog.

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Discover Users Guide

Apply changes immediately If this box is checked, then each time you check/uncheck the visibility box for a layer, move a layer or change its display characteristics, the corresponding Map Window is redrawn. If the box is unchecked, you can defer the redrawing of the Map Window until all changes have been made. This second mode of operation is convenient if you are making a number of changes at once. When you have made your changes, click on the Apply Changes button and your Map Window and ELC are updated reflecting all changes that you have made.

Show all windows in workspace If checked, all open Map Windows are displayed in the ELC. If unchecked, the ELC only displays the active window Use layer name aliases If checked, the ELC displays layer name aliases (if they exist). If unchecked, the actual .TAB file names are displayed Allow layer logical grouping If checked, the ELC tree can be displayed in Grouped view (see Creating Groups) Open branches for all windows If checked the ELC displays all layers and themes (or groups and layers in Grouped view) for all open Map Windows. If unchecked, only the current Map Window appears expanded. Open when Discover starts - Open the ELC on startup.

Metadata Keys The two entry fields at the base of the Layer Control Options dialog allow you to specify which .TAB file metadata keys are used to store layer aliases and group names. These default to the keys, Alias and Group. Normally you leave these alone unless you already have a convention in place for using different key names (see Layer Name Aliases and Assigning Layers to Groups).

Layer Controls
The ELC provides a set of visual controls for controlling layers. The visibility of each layer is controlled by the check box to the left of each layers name. Check a box by clicking in it and the layer is displayed, uncheck it and the layer disappears. Note You can display or hide all layers (other than the Cosmetic layer) for a Map Window by checking/unchecking the visibility box on the Map Window title in

Enhanced Layer Control

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the ELC. The visibility boxes for Cosmetic layers and Legend Windows are always checked you cannot uncheck them. Editability, selectability and auto-labels are controlled by clicking on the appropriate icons to the right of the layer name (these have the same appearance and the same functions as the equivalent controls in the standard MapInfo layer control). The icon on the far right of each layer allows you to zoom to the data extents of the particular layer. If you click on the cosmetic layer control (labelled All), it zooms to the extents of all layers. With the ELC, you can change the order of layers by dragging and dropping. Select a layer by clicking on it and then while holding down your mouse button, move to the place where you want to drop it and release the mouse button. You can even move layers between Map Windows using this method. You can select multiple layers by using your mouse cursor in conjunction with the CTRL and SHIFT keys.

Layer Properties
If you select a layer by clicking with the right mouse button, a pop-up menu appears that provides all the layer controls which are available from the standard MapInfo layer control:

The options on this menu are: Style Override Change a layers line, pattern or symbol style.

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Discover Users Guide

Zoom Layering Define a range of zoom limits for the selected layer Modify Theme Modify a thematic layer. Unlike Mapinfo, the Discover ELC displays thematic layers underneath the parent layer. Modify Hotlinks This allows you to control layer and object Hotlinks. For details refer to your MapInfo documentation.. Modify Labels Modify label appearance and style. Select All Select all items on a layer. Add Group Create a layer group. Refer to Creating Groups for additional information. Add Layer Add an open table to the current Map Window Remove Layer Remove one or more layers from the current Map Window Options - Options of the Enhanced Layer Control (refer to ELC Options)

Layer Name Aliases

It is often convenient to refer to a layer with a name that differs from the name of its associated .TAB file. For example, you might have 3 .TAB files called: area2_Collars_all_exp.tab area2_lab1_assays_12-05-2001.tab area2_StreamSamps.tab Using the alias facility provided by the ELC you could associate more generic names with these such as Assays, Stream_Samples and Drill_Holes and if you name your Map Window, Area_A Prospect 1, then this:

Actual TAB file names displayed in the layers.

Enhanced Layer Control

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The ELC with aliases used instead of the .TAB file names to better describe the layer content.

Defining an alias for a layer is straightforward double click on the layer name in the ELC and type the alias. When you press the Enter key, Discover saves the alias in the metadata section of the .TAB file for this layer. At any stage you can decide whether you want the ELC to display aliases or .TAB file names by toggling the Use layer name aliases option on the Layer Control Options dialog. Note Since layer name aliases are stored as metadata in .TAB files, you can only use one alias for a particular file at any one time.

Assigning Layers to Groups

As described above, the ELC allows you to operate on all open Map Windows from a single control. It is a persistent control that remains visible as long as you want it to and provides easy access to all the standard MapInfo layer control functions. The ELC also allows you to organize and group your layers in a manner that is natural for your application and in a way that is independent of the drawing order of the layers. For example, Map Window 1 contains 16 layers as follows: Geochemical Samples Outcrop Samples Veins and Dykes Faults Towns Elevation Points Elevation Contours

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Discover Users Guide

Drainage Roads Railways Mining Leases Exploration Areas National Parks Geological Units Magnetics Gravity Some of these layers contain points and labels, others contain polylines, and some contain filled polygons. Finally, there are images that are used as backdrops. The order of these layers in the standard MapInfo layer control (and in the ELC in its default mode) corresponds to the order in which the layers are displayed by MapInfo. Thus, the backdrop information (Gravity and Magnetics images and Geology) are at the bottom of the list (they must be displayed first so they dont obscure the other layers). Above them are the other polygonal layers (National Parks, Exploration Areas and Mining Leases). Then come the layers made up of linework (Railways, Roads, Drainage and Elevation Contours and Veins and Dykes) and finally the point layers (Towns, Geochemical Samples, Outcrop Samples and Elevation Points). If you didnt have to concern yourself with drawing order it would be more natural to think of the layers in a way that grouped related layers something like this: Samples Geochemical Samples Outcrop Samples Geology Veins and Dykes Faults Geological Units Geophysics Gravity Magnetics Topography Elevation Readings Elevation Contours Infrastructure Towns

Enhanced Layer Control

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Railways Roads Drainage Leases Etc. Mining Leases Exploration Areas National Parks The ELC allows you to do this. The Grouped View button at the bottom of the ELC toggles between Standard layer view and Grouped view. In Grouped view, you can quickly show or hide groups of layers. For example, to turn off all Topographic, Geophysics and Infrastructure layers in the example above (8 layers) you only have to click 3 times in the check boxes to the left of the appropriate group headers. This really comes into its own as a powerful feature of the program when you have a large number of layers (say 20) where at any one time you only want to display 2 or 3 of them. Rather than uncheck currently displayed layers then check new ones, you can organize all of them in a single group and then, when you want to change from one set of layers to the next you uncheck the group and then check the new ones that you wish to display.

Creating Groups and Adding Layers

To create groups, ensure that Allow layer logical grouping is enabled in the Options dialog. Select the Map Window containing the layer(s) that you wish to include in a group and right click. From the popup menu, select Add Group. A new group appears at the bottom and is assigned the default name, New Group. Modify this name to something more appropriate then drag and drop one or more layers into the group. If the layer was already a member of a group, it is removed from that group and included in the new one. Limitations of the Grouped View When you associate a Group Name with a layer, Discover includes the name as a metadata tag in the corresponding .TAB file. You can therefore think of Group naming as being a way of categorizing .TAB files. This restricts the way in which you use Groups as follows: 1. A layer can only belong to one group.

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2. If a layer has been included in a group, then all layers (in all Map Windows) that are attached to the same .TAB file, exist within the same group. 3. You cannot control the order that groups are displayed in Grouped View. Discover displays them in alphabetical order.

Map Controls
The ELC allows you to control the Map Window name and zoom scale. Right click on the Map Window in the ELC to activate the pop-up menu then select Window Properties:

Window Properties From the Window Properties item of the Map Window pop-up menu you can update the Map Window title, its location and its status (maximised, minimised etc.)

Window Properties dialog.

Setting specific positions and sizes can be useful if you need to setup a workspace that someone else is going to use. Window height and width are also useful parameters to define for consistency in setting up map layouts.

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Sometimes when a workspace is moved between computers that have screens of differing resolutions, you might find problems in accessing minimized windows (which are positioned off screen on one resolution or the other). By selecting a Map Window in the ELC and then selecting Window Properties from the Map Control menu you can maximise the window and thereby regain control of it.

Previous View The standard MapInfo Previous View function has been enhanced to allow multiple previous views of Map windows. As you pan and zoom a Map Window, the ELC records its limits. If you click on the Previous View button at the bottom of the ELC the current Map Window is redrawn with its previous limits. Every time you click this button the Map Window is redrawn with the appropriate limits. If you have resized your window then Zoom Previous does not change its size back to what it was previously but centers the previous zoom and redisplays at the previous scale. Note A compatibility conflict may exist between the ELCs Previous View function and your Windows display settings. For this function to operate correctly, the Windows display property, Show window contents while dragging must be disabled. To verify this, right click on your desktop and select Properties from the popup menu. Click on the Effects tab. If Show window contents while dragging is checked, uncheck it.

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Map Making
Discover facilitates map production in MapInfo with an integrated set of tools. After reading this section, you may wish to go through the Map Making Tutorial later in this manual. The Discover map making tools include: The Enhanced Layer Control (see previous chapter) assists layer and map window operation by providing rapid navigation, layer manipulation and a range of view controls. These functions make map making significantly simpler. Easily produce accurately scaled and standardized hardcopy maps complete with titleblocks and scalebars Add scaled map window frames to a layout window Open a custom titleblock Create a legend for multi-layer geological maps Colour maps with reference to a colour look-up table Maintain and use standard map object styles Add vector fill patterns to polygons Add geological annotation to linework Set MapInfo label angles for an entire layer Create text labels for map objects Reformat text objects for a specified map scale Update text objects from column values and vice versa.

Making a Map with Scaled Output

Printing an accurately scaled map, together with titleblock information, on the printer of choice, is a basic requirement for many Discover users. Although MapInfo provides the framework to accomplish this using the Layout window, achieving the combination of required scale and required frame size is not easy. The Discover Scaled Output tool performs this task for you with a wizard-style interface that simplifies the creation of hardcopy output from a map window.

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Step 1 Select the output map scale and paper size required Step 2 Specify map grid parameters Step 3 Specify titleblock parameters Step 4 Save the map and exit. There are two basic ways in which the area to be displayed in the map is chosen, and these affect how Scaled Output works. If you choose a map scale and a frame size, Discover places a temporary map sheet rectangle on the map, which is the size of the map sheet that you have specified. You can then move the map sheet rectangle until it is correctly positioned. This method provides maximum flexibility. Alternatively, you can also create a map from a series of Standard Map Sheet boundaries. Here you select the map sheet boundary to use and Scaled Output automatically resizes the map view to this area. With this standard map sheet mode in Scaled Output, you can easily create multiple printed maps covering standard areas.

Map Grid
After defining the position and size of the map area to use, Discover prompts for map grid parameters. The default parameters always produce a map grid with a suitable grid line spacing, but you may wish to modify these parameters to do the following: Alter the grid line spacing Use a different coordinate system (for example, place Latitude/Longitude grid lines and labels on a UTM map) Change the grid appearance between lines, crosses and edge ticks Change the grid label appearance or labelling frequency Display grid labels in a mask around the edge of the map Add multiple map grids to display, for example, Latitude/Longitude and UTM map grids together.

Titleblock and Scalebar

After the map grid has been generated and placed onto the map, Discover prompts for details to be entered into a titleblock. Discover ships with a simple titleblock that allows you to enter details for Title, Author, Office and so on.

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Other details, such as the date, the scale and the coordinate system used for the map are inserted automatically. The titleblock also includes a scalebar that shows the scale in whatever are the current distance units used in the map. The scalebar can be drawn in one of 3 formats. If you wish to modify the appearance of the titleblock, for example to include a company logo, or additional details (Project, Workspace etc), see Appendix A Titleblock Customizing in the Discover Reference Manual for a detailed description of modifying the Discover title block.

A scaled map with map grid and titleblock generated by Scaled Output

Making Further Changes to the Layout

When titleblock details have been entered, the scalebar and titleblock are drawn, a layout window is opened and the map frame and titleblock frames are inserted. You can then easily move the map and titleblock frames around in the layout, or add additional frames for legends, overview maps etc. You should also save a workspace at this stage to ensure that the layout definition can be restored should you inadvertently resize or zoom a map window.

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Scaled Frames and Titleblocks

Whilst Scaled Output provides a wizard-style interface to create a map ready to print, you can also use the Map Grid, Add Scaled Frame to Layout and Make Custom Titleblock tools to perform these tasks individually. This allows you to build a layout with a manual process or to modify existing layouts. The Add Scaled Frame to Layout tool allows you to enter the size, scale and position of the map frame that is required. Discover then resizes the map window and adds it as a frame into an open or new layout.

Generating a Legend for a Geology Map

When generating a layout for a geology map, you often want to include a legend showing the polygon display styles and matching attribute codes. Discover allows you to do this very easily and produces a Legend in a centimetre-based non-earth map window. This means that when created, the legend can easily be inserted into the layout window. Additionally, because the legend is a normal MapInfo table, it can be edited to produce exactly the appearance required. You can use Discovers Object Transformer tool to move a group of objects by an exact amount to fit your specific layout requirements. Discover allows you to create the legend from up to 10 layers (such as geology, faults, folds, hydrology etc), and items within each layer can be ordered manually or via look-up codes (for example, by age).

Adding Geological Annotation to Linework

Generating correct annotation for linework such as faults and folds can be a difficult process. Discovers Line Annotation tool gives you the capability of placing annotation for a number of common line types either at a regular repeat interval along the selected lines, or wherever the cursor is clicked. The annotation generated by this tool is different to custom line styles in MapInfo in that the annotation placement position can be precisely controlled. It is also easier to use than placing symbols along the lines as the adjacency and rotation of the annotation relative to the line is automatically determined.

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A selection of line annotation patterns generated by Discover

Use of the Line Annotation tool is most appropriate when annotation is required for hardcopy maps

Adding Vector Fill Patterns to Polygons

Geological fill patterns are an important element of a geological map, but the normal polygon fill patterns available from MapInfo do not always have enough variety. An alternative, where hardcopy output is the requirement, is to use vector fill patterns generated by Discover using the See-Thru Shading function. The vector fill patterns comprise points or lines that fill the selected polygons at a nominated spacing and angle for lines. You can also specify a stripe pattern oriented at any angle. Patterns that you define can be added to the vector fill pattern library that is part of Discover, allowing you easy access to previously used patterns. This is similar to the Map Styles library used to standardize map objects display styles. You can fill one or multiple selected objects with the nominated vector fill pattern. Alternatively, you can batch fill many polygons by specifying a column for the polygons that contains a polygon attribute code which matches the name of the vector fill pattern.

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A selection of polygon vector fill patterns

Attributing and Colouring Map Objects

To help maintain consistent map styles for your spatial data, you can use Discovers Styles Library. This library contains a list of map object styles for any type of map object and provides the ability to apply the graphic style to selected objects and to add an attribute code to a nominated column. You can use the pre-defined styles in Discovers styles library, or edit those and add your own. The Discover styles library includes style definitions for all of the symbols included in the ET GeoExplore symbol font that ships with Discover (see Appendix D of the Discover Reference Manual for a listing of these symbols).

Colouring Maps from a Look-up Table

A basic feature of a geological map is that all polygons that share an attribute code should have the same display style. Discover provides the Colour Maps tool to assist you in creating and using colour look-up tables which link an attribute code to a display style. A colour look-up table is a non-mappable table made up simply of a code (such as lithology) and display style definition (foreground colour, pattern etc). The colour table can be created based on an existing map table, or you can add

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entries to it. Once you have a colour table, you can then use it to colour (or recolour) any maps with suitable attribute codes. Colour Maps colours any type of map object (not just polygons) so you can use it for text labels, RAB drillhole locations, faults, exploration tenements etc. Colour Maps also gives you the ability to create a colour table from a thematic map, and to apply a Discover colour table to a map as a thematic map.

Map Labelling Tools

Labelling of map objects in MapInfo is a subject which, at first seems straightforward, but which has many hidden complexities and potential pitfalls. Discover provides a number of tools to assist in creating and modifying text labels for printed output. When using text labels, the biggest problem is sizing them correctly for printing. Discover allows you to specify text size relative to an output scale when creating new labels or modifying existing ones. Elsewhere in Discover, the same approach is taken when text annotation is displayed on a map (such as drillhole labelling, contour line labelling or dip labels for structure symbols). Using Discover, you can also alter the angle of multiple text labels and MapInfo labels. Three additional text label tools allow you to colour labels according to drillhole colour patterns, update attributes with the label text string and update the label text string with the value from a column in the same or a different table.

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Data Processing and Visualization

Discovers suite of data processing and visualization tools provide the following functions: Link documents to map objects for easy document display View numerical attribute data in graphs and link graph data points to the base table Display structural measurements in a map window Add point coordinates as attributes, or update point positions from attribute coordinates Transform map objects or coordinates as attributes from local to earth projection or vice-versa Create a table of local grid pegs and coordinates to assist in laying out Calculate the z-transform or percentile values from data columns Perform case-insensitive searches for a text string across multiple columns in a table, optionally replacing it with another string Select records by choosing the required values from a list of unique values in the nominated column Select objects meeting specific data and geographic conditions Assign values from points to polygons or polygons to points Update a column with the directions of line objects Extract node coordinates from polylines or regions into a table of points.

Linked Document Display

The Document Display function in Discover provides an easy method to hotlink a document to a map object. When the display document button is clicked, any documents linked to the selected map object are displayed. Discover opens the linked document in the appropriate application, so that .CDR files open in Corel Draw (if it is available), .doc files open in Word and so on. If the linked document is a bitmap file, another MapInfo table or a MapInfo workspace, then it is opened within MapInfo. Using this functionality, you can easily build up a catalogue of maps or remote sensed imagery. When you click

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on the polygon representing the extents of the map or image, the corresponding map or image is displayed.

Displaying Attribute Data in Graphs

GraphMap provides the capability to view and manipulate numerical attribute data in common graphical formats, and view the linked data in the base table. Although MapInfo provides a graph window, it is very limited in what it can display, and provides no link back to the base data. The following graph formats are available: Scatter (X-Y) - Optionally log transform either or both series. Summary statistics are displayed for both variables. This includes measures of correlation and linear regression. Histogram - Normal or log. Summary statistics are displayed in the graph window Probability - Normal or log. Summary statistics are displayed in the graph window Rose/Kite - Radius is proportional to frequency or square root of frequency. Use this graph type for displaying the distribution of angular data such as flow direction. Ternary Provides an option to normalize the three data series used Stereogram Display structural measurements in either equal-area or stereographic projections as poles to planes, cyclographic traces and lineations.

Ternary diagram generated by GraphMap with selected points and corresponding points in base table

The graph is created as a non-earth map window in a separate table to the base data, so that it can be stored for later use and displayed in layouts.

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Displaying Structural Measurements

The Structural Data Map window gives you the tools to turn lists of structural measurements into located symbols and labels. The structural data is displayed using a set of symbols that is supplied with Discover (for Australian and North American standards) and covers a wide range of structural measurements. Structural measurements can be read in from a file, or digitized directly into the map window. You can even digitize the azimuth of measurements on existing maps. See the Discover Reference Manual for a full listing of the structural symbols and their associated structure codes.

Coordinate and Grid Functions

MapInfo provides the opportunity of working in many different coordinate systems, and provides the means to convert tables from one coordinate system to another. Additional coordinate handling functions are required, however, to deal with local grids and other non-earth coordinate systems. The Update Coordinates tool is used to add coordinates into the browser window for point objects in the current map window. Unless you use this Discover function, MapInfo only allows you to display Latitude/Longitude coordinates rather than projected ones (UTM eastings and northings etc.). Much exploration data is collected in local or mine grid coordinate systems. The local grid usually has an origin at some location within the project area and is rotated by some angle relative to the map grid coordinate system (such as UTM). Transform Coordinates gives you the tools to convert map objects between local grid and map grid coordinate systems. You can also generate affine transformation parameters to create a custom coordinate system (see the MapInfo Professional Reference for more information on affine transformation coordinate systems). The Discover Local Grid Layout tool provides a simple means of generating a table of local grid peg locations and numbers. You input the starting location and orientation of the local grid and the peg/line spacing and Discover does the rest. You can use the resulting table as a survey planning aid, to assist in locating old sample points or to help in laying out the grid.

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Transforming Geochemical Data

Discover provides the Data Normalize function to convert raw geochemical values into Z-score or percentile values. These distribution transforms are useful when comparing multi-element datasets, when comparing multiple datasets that may have different analytical techniques, or to level samples by an attribute such as lithology. The Z-score is a measure of dispersion about the mean or median. A Z-score of close to zero is close to the mean/median, whilst a large number (positive or negative) indicates an outlier. Use the Log10 transform option where your data has a lognormal distribution. The percentile transform shows the position of a sample within the data distribution. A sample at the 90th percentile has a raw value greater than 90% of the samples. You can easily set up templates for ranged thematic maps to visualize calculated percentile values with consistent display styles.

Data Query Tools

Discover includes a number of tools that provide a simpler method of selecting required records than using the MapInfo SQL dialog. Select by Group displays a list of the different attribute values in the nominated column. By choosing the attribute value(s) required, corresponding records are selected. Text Search provides an easy way to select records with a given text string. This means that you do not need to know SQL just choose the column and enter the text string to search for. You can also use this tool to replace all occurrences of one string with another. A more specialized selection tool is Proximity Search. Using Proximity Search a buffer of a specified width is built around the selected objects and all map objects (such as mineral occurrences) that meet nominated criteria (such as mineral type = Au) and lie within the buffer are selected. Similarly, the Tenement Search function provides an optimized method for querying exploration tenement datasets. Tenement Search allows you to search by tenement type, number, holder and/or expiry date. Note that the Tenement option is only applicable to Australian applications. Discover has an additional query tool, Select by Graphical Style, that allows you to select objects based on graphical attributes such as colour, symbol style, fill pattern, line thickness and so on.

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Object Editing
Discover provides a range of advanced object editing tools for building new map objects and modifying existing ones. These tools extend the functionality provided by MapInfo Professional for digitizing and editing map objects. After reading this section, you may wish to go through the Dataset Building Tutorial later in this manual. Key in Shapes Create map objects with coordinates entered from the keyboard ASCII Object Import Generate line, polyline and region objects from line-by-line ASCII coordinates in a file Add Attributes automatically to map objects as they are created Offset Object Create a matrix of map objects at regular offsets from the seed object Transform Objects Apply shifting, scaling and rotation to one or more objects Line Smoother Smooth polylines by applying a spline Thin Nodes Reduce the number of nodes in polylines or regions Donut Polygons Cut out in-lying polygons for a whole table PolyClip Clip and save all data from multiple layers which lie within a selected object Line Cut Cut any line or region object with a crossing line Polygonizer Clean closures and intersections and build polygons from linework.

Creating Objects from Coordinate Descriptions

New map objects can be created in MapInfo by digitizing on-screen or from a hardcopy print using a mouse or digitizing tablet. On many occasions, however, there is a need to create the object (such as a mining tenement or a cadastral parcel) from known corner coordinates. Discover provides the Draw by Coordinates tool to let you type in the coordinates and then create any type of object. This is most useful for creating polylines and regions. Corner (also called vertex or node) coordinates can be

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entered as normal eastings and northings, or, if a Latitude/Longitude coordinate system is in use, as decimal degrees or degrees, minutes and seconds. For polylines and regions, you can also enter compass and tape traverses as distances, bearings and angular elevations. These are then converted into normal map coordinates. The Draw by Coordinates tool also allows you to edit the node locations of existing objects. To do this, select the object to be edited and click on the button. Discover displays a list of the node coordinates and you can then add or delete nodes or edit the node coordinates. When you have entire object descriptions as lists of coordinates in text files or spreadsheets, then you can use Discovers ASCII Object Import tool. This creates map objects (lines, polylines or regions) by reading the coordinates from the file.

Attributing Map Objects whilst Digitizing

You can use the DigData function to apply attributes to map objects as they are digitized. This is especially useful when digitizing sample points, contour lines etc where it is important to add a value to the object as it is digitized. DigData can automatically add attributes to a new record, or can display a dialog box allowing data entry whenever a new record is created. The data entry dialog can include pull-down lists to ensure data entry integrity.

Modifying Polylines
Discover provides three tools for modifying polylines. The Line Smoother interpolates a spline curve through the nodes of a polyline to create a smoothed appearance. The smoothed polyline has more nodes, but nodes in the original line are not moved. Discovers line smoother works quite differently to MapInfos polyline smoothing, which performs on-the-fly smoothing but does not add nodes permanently.

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An original polyline (centre) is smoothed (at left) and thinned by 70% (at right)

If you need to reduce the number of nodes in polylines, then you should use the line Thin tool. The thinner generalizes polylines (and polygons) by discarding either every nth node, or by discarding those nodes that are nearly collinear with neighbouring nodes. This second thinning method is more likely to retain the appearance of topographic features. Discovers Line Cut tool allows you to cut lines (or polygons) with other lines, making it ideal to use when cleaning or modifying data created elsewhere. The polygonizer also provides a method of cutting all lines where they intersect other lines, though in this case the cut lines are written to a new table.

Building Polygons
The process of digitizing a geology map involves digitizing the linework, cleaning up the lines, building polygons and then attributing the polygons. Cleaning linework and building polygons is a complex task that can be performed manually, one polygon at a time using the MapInfo object editing commands, or can be automated using Discovers Auto Polygonizer. Discover checks for lines that are not closed (with ends that are not joined to other lines) and highlights misclosures with symbols. Lines are then split at intersections, and polygons built from the resulting clean linework. Alternatively, you can use the Manual Polygonizer to assemble polygons one at a time from groups of individual lines.

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With geological maps made up of polygons, some polygons may lie within others (a common occurrence where an inlier is present within a larger polygon of a different lithology). This situation requires the smaller polygons to be excised from the larger ones, a task that the Donut Polygon tool performs.

Digitized linework (top) contains misclosures that are cleaned and then polygonized by Discover, after which lithological codes and colours can be assigned.

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Drillhole Display
The Discover drillhole display module provides you with the ability to process and visualize drillhole data in section or plan view. After reading this section, you may wish to go through the Drillhole Display Tutorial later in this manual.

Overview
The Discover drillhole module provides the following key features for processing and visualizing drillhole data in section and plan view. Project oriented interface for ease-of-use Use drill data stored in any database that MapInfo can read Flexible data model 3D coordinates are calculated on-the-fly Display drillholes in sections of any orientation or plan view Topographic surface and plan geology can be displayed in the section Display downhole data as histograms, linegraphs, text Up to 16 data display variables can be displayed for each drillhole Display profiles of multiple surfaces in section view Log style display for individual drillholes, with up to 24 data columns Sectional resource calculator Data validation methods Data compositing by attribute, cut-off grade, elevation or depth Section layout with grid and titleblock Drillhole info tool Export sectional interpretations to 3D DXF files.

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Displaying Drillhole Data

A drillhole dataset comprises several related tables containing drillhole collar location and geometry, downhole survey, downhole data and other related information. In order to use a set of drillhole data and display it, there are a number of tasks that you must perform (the first three steps need only be performed the first time you use the data): 1. Organize all drill data in the database of choice (MapInfo, Access, Excel etc), and ensure that the collar table is mappable 2. Create a new drillhole project, assigning tables and column names 3. Perform data validation to check for drillhole name mismatches etc. 4. Draw or select a line of section in the collars map and generate the section 5. Add downhole data annotation for the drillholes on the section 6. Place the section in a layout to scale with grid and titleblock, ready to be printed.

Data Formats and Data Sources

Drillhole display in Discover has been designed to allow the use of data from a wide range of possible sources. Discover can use drillhole data stored in any database format that MapInfo can read, including Access and ODBC databases. Discover does not need to make any alterations or additions to the source data. Discover calculates 3D coordinates for downhole samples as it displays the drillhole, which means that it is not necessary to store these coordinates. This improves ease of use with Microsoft Access database tables and read-only tables (such as Excel spreadsheets). Also, later changes to the collar coordinates or to the downhole surveys do not require downhole coordinates to be recalculated. Drillhole data is stored in a number of related tables, with the Hole ID acting as the key to link the different tables. Some or all of the following data tables are used to define the drillhole project:

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Collar Location The collar location table is a mappable table containing point objects for each drillhole collar. It has mandatory columns for the following data (the column names listed here are not compulsory): Hole ID, Easting, Northing, Elevation, Azimuth, Dip, and Total Depth. Downhole Surveys The downhole survey table is not mappable and contains a list of depths and surveys for each hole. If you have no downhole survey information then you do not need a downhole survey table. If present, it must contain columns for Hole ID, Depth, Azimuth and Dip. Drillholes having no downhole surveys are displayed as straight lines using the collar dip, azimuth and total depth. Downhole Data You can have multiple downhole data tables which are not mappable and which contain sample data (or other sorts of data such as lithology). The downhole data tables must contain columns for Hole ID, Depth From and Depth To, and the order of these mandatory columns must be the same in each downhole data table. You may include any other data columns (such as sample number, rock type, gold grades etc) as required. Discover can display data from any of the columns in the downhole data tables.

Assigning collar, survey and downhole data columns for a drillhole project

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Discover allows you to display datasets measured over different sample intervals (for example, Au from 10-11m, 11-12m, 15-16m, 18-21m etc., and Rock Type from 0-11.4m, 11.4-19.1m, 19.1-21.0m etc.). Only data that conforms to the same sampling intervals should be stored in any one table. In the example above, you would have one table for assay data, and a separate table for rock type. You can use as many downhole data tables as you require. Note All mandatory columns, as noted above, should be numeric except for the Hole ID. The actual names and order of the mandatory columns is not important, as Discover allows you to nominate which column contains which information. The tables DH_COLLARS, DH_SURVEY, DH_ASSAY and DH_LITH in the Discover_Tutorial\Other Data directory form an example dataset in a format suitable for use with Discover. Examine the structure of these tables to help you prepare your own data, and use this test dataset to run through the drillhole display program. ODBC Data Discover can use downhole data from ODBC databases in one of two ways. Using MapInfos open ODBC table command, a normal ODBC linked table can be created and it is then treated as any other MapInfo table. Alternatively, Discover can directly access just the ODBC data required for a specific section. This greatly reduces the local storage requirements for linked tables and can speed up operations where very large databases (hundreds or thousands of samples) are used. A special configuration file must be created for each ODBC table that is accessed. ODBC table configuration would normally be performed by a person specializing in data administration. Grid and Contour Surfaces Discover can extract sectional profile information from gridded and contoured surfaces (such as surface topography and soil geochemistry) for displaying in the drillhole section. Grids can be in Discover, ER Map window or Geosoft format. Contoured surfaces must consist of polylines attributed with the appropriate Z value. See the section on Surface Creation and Analysis for more information on the grid formats.

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Geology Plans Surface geology information may be displayed on the section by specifying a geology plan containing attributed regions. Discover splits the surface profile into individual lines for each intersecting geology polygon, and assigns the colour and attribute appropriate for the geology polygon to each line. For other data types, the column that contains the appropriate attribute information (geology) must be specified.

Defining a Drillhole Project

Defining a drillhole project is the first step in the procedure of processing and visualizing your drillhole data in Discover. The drillhole project brings together all of the associated drillhole data tables (as described above). Once a project is defined, select the project and all relevant tables are automatically opened.

Displaying a Section or Plan

After defining a drillhole project and validating the drillhole database, you want to display the drillhole data in section or plan view. The simplest way to do this is to draw a line on the drillhole collar map and select that line. Discover can use this selected line to define the section geometry, including a section envelope width. Drillholes that lie within or intersect the section envelope are identified and a section is displayed. The section is drawn into a normal map window, in a non-earth coordinate system. The horizontal axis is the distance along the section and the vertical axis is elevation (in the units specified at project definition). The drillhole traces can also be displayed in plan view, providing a convenient method of visualizing drillhole data together with related datasets such as surface geology or gridded geochemistry. The plan view also allows you to display trenches/costeans that are treated as horizontal drillholes.

Displaying Downhole Data

When you have generated a drillhole section or plan using Discover, you are probably wanting to display the downhole data against each drillhole. As the drillhole section consists of normal MapInfo tables, you can use MapInfos thematic mapping and labelling tools to help visualize the downhole data. Discover, on the other hand, provides greater ease of use and flexibility by using display methods specific to drillhole data.

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Drillhole cross-section showing Au displayed as histogram and text labels

Discovers drillhole data display system has the following characteristics: Up to 16 attributes (or variables) may be displayed for each drillhole An attribute may come from any appropriate column from any downhole data table Each attribute can be displayed in one of five different ways - text, histogram, linegraph, trace shade or structure tick Colour patterns may be created to display different attributes The display settings may be used to create a legend Once defined, the display settings may be saved to a file and recalled for later use.

Discover offers the following downhole data display types: Text label Text coloured by a range or individual colour pattern (ideal for assays) Histogram Scaled bars for each sample interval indicating the value of that sample Linegraph Continuous line down the drillhole with distance from the trace indicating the value for that depth Trace Shade Coloured log style display (ideal for lithology)

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Structure Ticks Lines drawn across the drillhole trace showing the true or apparent dip of measured structures.

Each of the display types (except for linegraph) can have a colour pattern applied to it with different values (grades, rock type etc) displayed in different colours. Alternatively, you can use a Discover colour table to colour individual values such as lithology. When the downhole data is displayed in section or plan, a legend can also be generated to show the colour patterns and data column names.

Viewing Sections in the Layout Window

Adding one or more sections to the layout window is easy to do using the Add Section to Layout menu item. You need to nominate the scale, size and position of the section frame in the layout window. When you add multiple sections to the layout window, the sections are automatically offset from each other so as not to overlap, and the number of pages in the layout is increased to fit all the frames. As the section map window is inserted into the layout, a section map grid, titleblock and scalebar can also be generated in a manner similar to Scaled Output.

Drillhole section in a layout, with collar plan and titleblock

The plan view of the section can be inserted into the layout, above the section view, and rotated parallel to the line of the section. To view a drillhole plan in its entirety in the layout window, use Scaled Output.

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Discover Users Guide

Drillhole Log Display

The Drillhole Log Display function in Discover provides a means of displaying up to 24 columns of downhole data for one drillhole in a standard log style display. This display style is a valuable method for visualizing relationships between multiple variables within a drillhole such as a suite of elements, lithology and downhole geophysics. If you have selected one or more drillholes from the collar map, a log display can be defined. If you have selected multiple drillholes, a separate log is created for each drillhole. The log is stored in a table named for that drillhole and mapped in a non-earth (cm based) coordinate system that can be further annotated or added to the layout window and printed. The drillhole log can display any data that you would also display in section view, using the same types of display (trace shade, text, histogram or linegraph). The linegraph display style can be modified by filling with a solid colour, or with a trace shade log (for lithology or similar).

Log for DDH-09

Lithology Pb_ppm Zn_ppm
0 500 0 100 0

As_ppm Ag_ppm Au_ppm

7 0 3 0 0.74

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130

Drillhole data displayed in log style

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Calculating Sectional Resources

Discover provides a simple method for interpolating resources from cross sections or level plans. Using a two dimensional inverse distance weighted interpolator (similar to that used in Discovers Surfaces module), a grid of interpolated values can be generated for the entire section, or for a chosen boundary which has already been digitized. When the section resource has been created, it is displayed as a normal gridded surface that allows it to be queried and modified using the functions in the Surface Creation and Analysis module. Note Encom does not advise using this function for ore reserve calculations. In order to digitize ore boundaries or geological interpretations onto your drill sections, you should use a special boundary table that Discover creates. This table is recognized by the sectional resource function and can be exported into a 3D DXF file for use in mine planning software.

Data Validation
Discover includes a number of options to assist in validating the data in your drillhole project. Using the data validation options can highlight difficult to detect situations such as hole name or total depth mismatch between the collar and downhole data tables. The validation procedure works upon either the entire project database, the currently selected drillholes (selected from the collar map), or you may select the holes to check from a list. Data validation results are then printed to the screen and/or written to a log file. Discover provides the following validation options that can identify a number of common data problems: Hole name mismatch Common problems occur where the hole name is specified differently in the collar table to the downhole tables (for example, DDH007 and DDH7 are considered by Discover to be different drillholes). Total depth mismatch If downhole data exists below the total depth specified in the collar table it is not displayed in section. This can occur due to data entry errors, or if the collar data was entered before the drilling was complete.

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Large dip/azimuth changes Data entry errors in either the collar dip/azimuth or downhole surveys can cause significant problems that are difficult to pick up. Discover lists all drillhole surveys where the drill trace deviates by more than a specified amount between surveys. Duplicate sample numbers In some instances duplicate sample numbers are an indication of data entry errors and need to be identified. Overlapping sample intervals Usually sample intervals do not overlap in a downhole data table and any such intervals must be identified. Sample interval gaps Although many drillholes do not have contiguous sample intervals from top to bottom, it is often very useful to list out where the gaps are located to ensure no data entry errors.

Data Compositing
Discovers drillhole data compositing functions provide you with the tools to composite downhole data. Compositing can be used to consolidate your assay data by sampling interval, lithology or cut-off grade. The output from the compositing operation is a table containing the composited intervals, which can then be used to create new cross-sections. The following compositing methods are available: Composite by unique attribute Use this to perform compositing by a unique-value attribute such as lithology or alteration. All contiguous intervals with the same attribute value are grouped together. Composite by cut-off grade This function takes numeric parameters for cut-off grade, high cut and dilution to produce an output table with intervals above or below the specified cut-off grade Composite by elevation An output table is produced with downhole intervals at regular elevation intervals Composite by downhole depth An output table is produced with intervals at regular downhole depth.

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Surface Creation and Analysis

Surface import, creation and analysis functions in Discover allow you to use and create gridded, interpolated surfaces, display the gridded surfaces and query the grids. After reading this section, you may wish to go through the Surface Creation and Analysis tutorial chapter later in this manual. As Discover provides the ability to use a variety of grid formats (see Configuring Grid File Formats), you can use the various MapInfo and Discover display functions to present the grids as contours, 3-dimensional surfaces, images or draped multi-surfaces. Sun shading or various colour styles can also be applied to further enhance the displays.

Overview
Surface Creation and Analysis provides the following functionality: Create an interpolated grid from selected points by inverse distance weighting or by triangulation Import ASCII grid files Contour grid files Export binary grids to ASCII files Export contours to 3D DXF files Place annotation labels on contour lines Report grid cell values to the screen Assign grid cell values to points, lines or polygons Report the volume between a gridded surface and a specified level Return polygons for those areas of a grid meeting query criteria Display a profile from one or more gridded surfaces draped with vector data Create Regions from points (Voronoi Polygons), optionally bounded by a selected boundary Merge two grids by adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing Create a slope or aspect grid from an input grid Adjust grid display with various colour schemes and stretching options

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Apply sun-shading to a grid Display a colour-value legend for a grid Register binary BIL, ER Map window or Geosoft grids Move and rename grid files.

What is a Surface Grid

A surface grid is a rectangular array of points, each of which has an interpolated Z or height value. The Z value in a grid may represent either real heights (such as topographic elevation, depth to weathering or coal seam thickness) or a geochemical, geophysical or other value (such as gold concentration, radiometric total count or rainfall). The surface grid is generated from a set of input points, each of which has a location and a Z value for that location. The regular surface grid is generated from the irregularly distributed input points by calculating interpolated values at regular positions. It is important to understand that the interpolated values are approximations only of the real values of the surface and that the interpolated values differ depending upon the interpolation method used. With some interpolation methods, the interpolated value can be significantly different to that of a data point at the same position.

Regular grid of interpolated points generated from irregularly distributed input points.

Once a regular grid of interpolated values has been calculated and stored, it can be displayed in MapInfo. Usually, the grid cells are stored in a simple binary format, so that Discover can display them in MapInfo as a raster image. This

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method of display is significantly quicker than for polygon grids, and allows large grids to be handled efficiently. The grid can also be displayed as contours. Contours are generated by tracing lines of equal Z value across the grid. The contour lines do not provide as much information as a grid, but do offer another visualization method. This is useful for displaying contours of one grid over a second grid (for example, soil geochemistry contours over a magnetics grid image).

Configuring Grid File Formats

When grid formats are created or imported into MapInfo, Discover can assist these operations by: Creating surfaces in a format of your choice Exporting a preferred format Internally using the preferred format to allow ease of use when MapInfo is used with third-party software packages (such as ER Viewer or Oasis Montaj by Geosoft).

The preferred grid format can be specified from the Grid Configuration Discover menu item. Use the displayed dialog to nominate your preferred grid format.

Grid format selection for preferred operation.

Once a grid format has been selected, grids created from this point use the specified format. You can alter the type preferred by re-selection at any time.

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Note

The Grid Handler support provided in this option is ONLY available for MapInfo versions more recent that Version 5.5. Discover supports four grid formats that are used widely in the geoscience industry. These grids are: Binary Interleaved by Line (BIL) ER Map window (.ERS) Geosoft (GRD) MapInfo (MIG).

For more information on grid formats, see the Discover Reference Manual.

Creating a Gridded Surface

Discover provides two basic methods for creating an interpolated surface from a set of input points: Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) This is a technique where the value of the surface at any given grid node is calculated from the weighted average of surrounding points. The weights given to each of the surrounding points during the averaging is determined by the distance of those points from the grid node. The further away that a point is from the grid node being interpolated, the less it contributes to the value assigned to the node. This technique for grid estimation is best suited to data where some degree of smoothing is beneficial. An example of this would be geochemical sampling with this type of data a repeat measurement at a point does not necessarily giving the same results as the first measurement. Triangulation with Natural Neighbour Interpolation (referred to simply as triangulation). The process of triangulation allows a surface to be created by forming a triangular irregular network from the input data points. The natural neighbour interpolation process then uses the triangulated network to generate regularly gridded values. Triangulation is useful for data such as elevations where data must be honoured. When creating a surface, the grid cell size (the distance between adjacent grid nodes) that you choose is important. As the grid cell size is reduced, the

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appearance of the grid becomes smoother, but computation time increases. Discover suggests a grid cell size for your data but you may want to experiment with alternative values. For IDW gridding you also need to specify interpolation parameters that control which data points are used for interpolating the value of each grid node.

Inverse Distance Weighted Gridding

The simplest way to grid data points is to use the IDW nearest neighbour option that calculates an interpolated value for each grid cell using the nearest n samples. This is only suitable where you have a fairly uniform distribution of input points across the area to be gridded. However, if your input data points are not randomly distributed (for example you have soil samples taken on a fairly regular grid), then you should use the search ellipse IDW option. A search ellipse of fixed size and orientation is defined, and a grid cell value is then calculated from the weighted average of all data points that lie within the ellipse centred on that grid cell. The search ellipse can produce quite different results from the nearest neighbour method, especially in areas where data is sparsely distributed. If no samples occur within the ellipse for a grid cell, then that grid cell is assigned a null value and is displayed as white in the grid image. If the search ellipse that you specify is too small, then the result is too many null values between data points. The weight given to each data point during the interpolation is determined by a function of its distance from the grid cell. The weight:power defaults to two (that is the weight of a data point is inversely proportional to the square of its distance from the grid cell) but can be set to any positive value.

Contouring a Surface
Contours can be generated when a surface is gridded, or at a later stage. Normally contours will be drawn using a fixed contour interval (for example, surface elevations). You can also supply a file containing required contour levels. This can be useful when contouring a geochemical grid with a lognormal distribution.

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Gridded surface elevation plus contours and contour labels

Surface Profile over a Grid or Contour Plan

The Make Profile function provides a powerful means of for identifying and analyzing trends and spatial relationships in gridded surfaces. Profiles for any line or polyline can be generated across gridded surfaces or contour plans. A profile across a topographic, geochemical or geophysical data grid can be integrated with vector information from polygon and line layers to allow the relationships to be interpreted. Profiles for multiple surfaces may be displayed together to show, for example, topographic and base of weathering surfaces, together with magnetics and soil geochemistry, with the surface geology and fault lines draped over the topographic surface.

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Profile across multiple gridded surfaces

Discover generates a profile by checking the Z value for each grid cell or contour line that lies along the profile line that you select. You can drape the profile with polygon intersections from a second layer, such as geology, or soil type. The profile is split into separate lines at each polygon intersection and the separate lines are coloured and attributed according to the intersecting polygon. Additionally, you can display on the profile the intersection points of the profile line with lines from other layers (such as faults or rivers). Discover can create profiles from Discover, ER Map window or Geosoft grids, polygon grids or contour plans. When creating a profile from polygon grids or contour plans, the Z values must be stored in a numeric column.

Querying Grids
The grid query tools provide a convenient method of answering queries such as: What is the grid value at this point? What is the mean value of the grid within this polygon? Other tasks such as creating MapInfo polygons that cover the areas of a grid that meet a specific criteria are provided. The Elevation, Slope, Aspect query tool is relevant only for digital elevation model surface grids. It provides the functionality for performing a complex query, such as would be required to identify steep north facing slopes There is also a function for calculating the volume contained between a grid surface and a specified level. Using this function, you can calculate the total

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volume of weathered material, rock in a stockpile or mineralization within an interpreted outline.

Merging and Clipping Grids

There are many instances when you need to merge or clip grids. Discover provides the tools to perform grid arithmetic tasks such as: Clipping out part of a geochemistry grid covering areas you dont want released Subtracting the base of weathering from the surface elevation to give the depth of weathering Adding a constant value to adjust a surface elevation grid to mine datum Multiplying a grid with ppb values by 1000 to allow it to be compared with a grid containing ppm values Merging a regional geochemistry grid with a closely spaced prospect grid Merging adjacent surface elevation grids to provide a seamless DEM.

Changing the Appearance of Grids

When a grid is first displayed by Discover in MapInfo, a default colour scheme such as greyscale or rainbow is applied. You may want to adjust the appearance of the grid to enhance specific features. For example, by adding real-time sun-shading to an elevation or magnetics grid, subtle structures are often enhanced. Sun-shading works by brightening areas of the grid which face the direction of the sun and darkening those areas that face away from the sun, or are in shadow. You may also wish to change the colour look up table to one of the others that Discover supports, and alter the relation between grid cell values and colours by applying a stretch. A histogram stretch can be used to modify the grid display for geochemical and geophysical datasets where there is a distinctly non-linear distribution of grid cell values. You can also use percentile break colouring for geochemical grids to show the grid as a number of distinct colours, ranged by percentiles. This method of display is valuable for comparing multi-element datasets.

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Surfaces can also be used for draping vector or other image layers and then displayed in 3 dimensions.

An example of displaying surfaces with draped imagery.

Registering Grid Files Created Externally

In addition to grid surfaces created within Discover, you can register grids created externally, so they can be displayed in similar fashion to Discover generated grids. ER Map window (.ERS) and Geosoft (.GRD) grids are automatically registered after you nominate a coordinate system. To register other BIL grids (eg.Arc/Info) you may need to specify grid geometry parameters. You can also import grids stored in ASCII files. This can be a suitable format for exchanging grids between systems. Refer to the 3D Display tutorial for an example of registering external surfaces.

Points to Regions (Voronoi Polygons)

Voronoi Polygons are polygons that subdivide an area containing data points in such a way that each polygon contains one and only one point and each polygon edge is equidistant from the two points contained within the two polygons that share the edge. They are the inverse of a triangular irregular network and cover an area that may be thought of as the area of influence for that data point. Voronoi Polygons thus provide a method for creating a surface without interpolation and gridding. In some cases, for example when analyzing coal or

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mineral sands drillholes, creating a surface of Voronoi Polygons based on the drillhole locations may be preferable to gridding. When the Voronoi Polygons are created by Discover, the attributes of each point are transferred to the polygon surrounding it, thus allowing quick estimation of volumes and concentrations.

Voronoi Polygons generated from coal quality boreholes, bounded by the planned pit outline

Discover generates Voronoi Polygons from selected points in the front map window. By default, the Voronoi Polygons extend no further than the outer boundary of the group of selected points (called the convex hull). You can choose, however, to extend the Voronoi Polygons by a specified distance outside of the convex hull. Alternatively, the Voronoi Polygons can be bounded by a selected polygon. In this latter case, the bounding polygon is selected prior to choosing the Points to Regions menu item, and all points that lie within the selected bounding polygon are used to create Voronoi Polygons.

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Miscellaneous Tools
Discover provides a broad range of productivity tools to assist you in processing and visualizing within MapInfo. These tools fall into two main categories Table Utilities and Map Window Utilities.

Table Utilities
Open and import multiple tables across directories Pack, export and append multiple tables Edit workspaces to remove table name inconsistencies Save open tables to a new directory and save a workspace Adjust the map bounds for a mappable table Update multiple columns in one table from another table by joining on a common column Open tables, workspaces and MapBasic programs selected from a list showing their aliases Structure, edit and view table metadata Generate and query/view a catalogue of your entire spatial database.

Map Window Utilities

Set the geographic view of a map window to a named view from a list, and save new views to the list Easily apply commonly used projections from a list display the current coordinate system information for the map window Set the default map view for a table Select all map objects from the currently editable layer Fit the map window to a selected object.

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Table Utilities
The Discover Table Utilities provide a range of useful tools. The Multi-Open and Multi-Import functions offer you an easy way to open multiple tables across directories, by building a list of tables to be opened. Opening multiple tables is also accomplished using workspaces, though problems can often occur when the workspace references an invalid table name (the table may have been moved, renamed or deleted). The Workspace Editor provides a way of checking which tables are opened by a workspace and whether those tables exist. You can also change the path to a table, or remove drive letters (for example, from C:\data\geology to \data\geology). This can be important if you copy data from a local drive to a network or CD. If you are writing a workspace to CD or to a local drive, you may not want to retain the original directory structure of the data, but write everything to one directory instead. The Save Tables and Workspace tool does this automatically. The Alter Map Bounds tool is very important when editing datasets. The map bounds (the geographic limits within which map objects are displayed), are stored within the table. They may need adjusting when editing maps, especially those in non-earth coordinate systems. If map objects cannot be seen in the map window, or appear to be squashed up to the edge of the map, then incorrectly set bounds are usually the reason.

Metadata Tools
Metadata is information that relates to a dataset and that describes one or more characteristics of that dataset. For example, metadata could describe the ownership of a dataset, the last date on which changes were made to it etc. For more information on how Discover treats metadata refer to the Discover Reference Manual Discovers Metadata Tools provide an integrated set of metadata creation, editing, viewing and cataloguing functions. Using the Metadata Tools, you can do the following: Define metadata structures as hierarchical templates Propagate the metadata structure across the spatial database Add metadata key values to the each table

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Construct a catalogue of the spatial database, including metadata key values View the spatial catalogue, opening tables of interest

The creation of metadata templates and of the spatial catalogue are tasks that are normally performed by a spatial database administrator. Maintaining and viewing the metadata, and viewing the spatial catalogue are tasks for both the database administrator and the user. Once the metadata has been added to each table in the spatial database, the catalogue can be accessed at any time to provide answers to queries such as: What geochemistry maps are available for this area? What was the compilation scale and date for the geology maps? Which datasets are available for the joint venture project? For more information on what metadata is, how to use it and the Discover Metadata Tools, see the Discover Reference Manual.

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10

Map Making Tutorial

This tutorial goes through the steps required to produce a geological map, complete with location map, legend and titleblock.

An Exercise in Map Production

This exercise produces an A4 landscape map. If the printer driver is set for 8.5 x 11 (Legal) paper, you should be aware that some portions of this exercise may not appear in the final print as they are outside the printable margins. Alternative paper settings are noted in the following exercise for users of Legal size paper.

Note

The dataset used in this exercise is fictitious and should not be relied upon for exploration planning.

Step 1. Open Map Layers

From the MapInfo menu bar, choose File>Open Table. Open the following tables from the Discover_Tutorial\Map Making directory: Geology, Structures, Minerals and Tenements Check the layer order in Enhanced Layer Control. It should be as follows: Minerals, Structures, Tenements and Geology. If the order is incorrect, drag and drop the layers within the Enhanced Layer Control dialog and Apply the changes. Complete the map window setup by selecting the Zoom to all layers button from the Enhanced Layer Control or by choosing Map>View Entire Layer>All Layers.

Step 2. Apply See Thru Shading

Applying see through vector polygon shading lets us view geology underneath, whilst allowing tenements to be visualized. Select all of the tenement polygons. To do this, right click on the Tenement layer in the Enhanced Layer Control and choose Select All from the pop-up

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menu (activated by a right mouse click). Alternately, use the Query>Select and choose the table Tenements, then click OK. From the Discover menu, choose Map Making>SeeThru Shading. A message may be displayed asking if table STPatts should be created. You should answer Create. Choose the Specify Pattern option. Under pattern type, choose Lines. Click the Line icon, and choose a Dotted LineStyle, black colour, pixel width of 1. Under Pattern Density and Orientation, enter angle 135 (a southeast trend), and spacing of 0.1 km. Press the Save As button and enter the table name Tenement Fill. Click OK. The vector polygon fill then appears in the new layer Tenement Fill.

Step 3. Line Annotation

The Structures layer contains syncline (green lines) and anticline (brown lines) structures that trend northeast. Using Discover, we can add fold axis annotation to these lines so that the geology is easily understood. Select a brown line. Using Discover, we can select all other brown lines from the structures layer. From the Discover menu, choose Map Window>Select by graphical styles. When you click OK, all remaining brown lines in the structures layer are selected. To annotate, choose Discover Map Making>Line Annotation, and fill in the following options:

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Adding annotation to selected lines

The annotation is written to the Structures layer. Repeat the above process for the green lines, annotating them with a Syncline symbol. Note If you are applying a directional symbol, such as normal fault, it is important that the annotation appears on the correct side of the selected line. A symbol is placed to the left of a line or facing up if the Facing left/up box is checked; otherwise if the box is unchecked, the annotation appears on the right or down side of the selected line. You may wish to experiment with this feature using some of the other lines in the Structures layer. You can also manually place each annotation on a selected line using a tool button. If you make a mistake in annotation placement, simply select the annotation object and delete it. To increase the annotation density along a line, try decreasing the distance to 0.5 km. To save changes made to the Structures table, choose File>Save Table.

Step 4. Text Labels

Adding labels to a map for printing is a procedure that requires a methodical approach to get the required result. If you place labels on the map window and print your map, the labels often have an inappropriate size and require additional manipulation.

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Discover addresses this problem by allowing you to label a map layer at a set point size at the scale at which the map is plotted. The four tenements can be labelled using Discover>Map Making>Text Labels. In the dialog box that appears, choose to label objects from table Tenements from column Tenement. Choose label size 10 pts for a map scale of 1:15,000. Click OK. The tenements are labelled at their centroid in the Cosmetic Layer. The labels need to be saved to a new layer. Choose Map>Save Cosmetic Objects>New and save to table name Tenement Text.

Step 5. Producing a Map Legend

To generate a map legend, click on Discover>Map Making>Legend. A dialog box appears that allows the user to select the tables from which the legend is generated. Select the Minerals, Structures and Geology tables by holding the CTRL key while left clicking on the relevant tables. Click OK. The legend dialog allows you to specify which columns of attribute data should be displayed in the legend. Fill in the dialog box as follows:

Generating a legend for the geology map

Place a checkmark in the Specify Order boxes for Minerals and Geology to set the order of legend items for these layers. If your map window does not display the full extents of a table, and you want a legend created for all items in the table, do not place a checkmark in the box for Legend from objects in map window only.

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The font size for the legend text needs to be specified. Click on the Styles button and press the font style button next to Title Line. Choose point size 24. Repeat the process for Sub-Title line and choose point size 18. Click the Text Line 1 and Text Line 2 font style buttons and choose point size 14, click OK. Click the OK button and enter a table name for the legend, say Geology Legend. Press the Save button. A legend order window for the minerals layer is then displayed. The minerals should be displayed in Alphabetical order (ascending), so click on the appropriate option, and then click OK. Another legend order window is displayed, this time for geology. The lithologies should be placed in chronological order. Notice that we are displaying the lithologies, rather than the ages. Discover orders legend items based on the first column chosen in the initial setup dialog box. As we want to display lithologies followed by age in our geological legend, it is necessary to determine the relevant order prior to starting the legend process. Alternatively, you can use the Look-up code from Geology option to allow the lithologies to be ordered according to a numeric attribute in another column.

Re-ordering legend entries for the geology layer

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To place the lithologies in chronological order, order them as shown in the window above using the custom setting and the up-down buttons to move items accordingly. When the OK button is pressed, the geological legend is displayed in a new map. You may wish to verify that the lithologies are in chronological order. You should minimize the legend window, and make the geological map window active before proceeding to the next step.

Step 6. Generating Scaled Hardcopy Output

You can now generate an A4 landscape layout (or other suitable paper size) with scaled map frame, grid, title block, scale bar and legend. From the MapInfo menu bar, choose File>Page Setup. Choose either A4 (or A for legal size in North America) and press the Landscape button. Click OK to accept the Page Setup parameters. This procedure ensures that the MapInfo layout window is set to the size and orientation required. Choose Discover>Scaled Output. Under Map Scale choose Custom Scale (at the bottom of the scale list), and type 15,000 in the box that becomes enabled. Under frame setup, choose New from the list of Frame Settings. In the frame settings configuration dialog box that appears, choose A4 and click the Landscape button. Notice that the map frame position measurements change to reflect the area that the map covers on your selected sheet of paper. Note The non-printing margins may have to be adjusted depending on the printer driver in use. You can determine if adjustment is required by completing the scaled output exercise and observing the resulting layout window. If some portions of the map are in the light grey area (non-printing margins) of the layout, you need to return to the configuration menu and adjust the non-printing settings. If you change a non-printing margin (say right and left edges from 1 cm to 1.5 cm each), you need to compensate by decreasing the frame width by 1 cm (0.5 cm added to each edge). For this exercise, we wish to place a titleblock and legend outside the map frame. If you chose A4 size paper, then decrease the map frame position width by 5 cm. Change it to 22.7 cm width. Leave the frame height at 19.2 cm. If you have chosen A size paper, change the frame width to 20.9 cm.

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Click the OK button and enter a name to save the setting as, say A4 L Out (or A L Out) indicating A4 / A landscape paper, legend and titleblock outside map frame. Back in the main Scaled Output dialog, ensure that the Draw Grid option is checked, TITLEBLK appears as the titleblock name, and ScaleBar 1 is listed for the scalebar. Press the OK button. The map window will zoom in and a transparent polygon, representing the area to be plotted at 1:15,000 scale, will appear in the map window. Left mouse click inside the frame and drag it to cover the tenement area and geology to the left side of the tenements. When you are satisfied with the frame position, select the Scaled Output>Accept Map Position menu option. The map window resizes to the area of the transparent map frame. The Discover Map Grid dialog box appears. Click OK to accept the default parameters. A grid is drawn into the map window. The titleblock dialog box opens next. Enter the following details: Title Line 1 Title Line 2 Title Line 3 Author
Tiger Snake Mining Geology Map Tenement Locations.

(your name)

The default titleblock position is bottom right inside. From the titleblock position list, choose Bottom Right Outside. The default Scalebar position is Show ScaleBar in Titleblock. Other options give you the opportunity to list the layers of the map window in the layout. The default display position is Bottom Right. For the purpose of this tutorial, set the display to No List. Press OK to create the titleblock, and a layout window.

Step 7. Add Scaled Frame to Layout

We need to add the legend to the layout window. Make the Geology Legend map window active and select the Discover>Map Making>Add Scaled Frame to Layout menu item. Fill in the dialog box as below.

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Adding a scaled frame for the legend into the layout

The legend is added to the layout window. Paper measurements appear along the side of the layout window in centimetres. Take a moment to examine the legend position with reference to the layout measurements and the information that was entered in the above dialog box. This should provide a good idea of how Add Scaled Frame to Layout works. For A size paper, enter a value of 21.9 cm for Offset from left. You can always adjust the position of the frame once it has been added to the layout.

Step 8. Creating a Location Map

The final requirement is to add a location map to the layout window. Choose File>Open Table. From the Tutorial Map Making directory, open the table Australia in a New Map Window. We need to draw a red rectangle to represent the location of our map within Australia, and we will use the Key-In-Shapes tool. The coordinates for the rectangle have been previously determined. Select Discover>Oject Editing>Key-In-Shapes. Choose to draw onto the Cosmetic Layer. Click on Rectangle as object type, click on the polygon icon and choose a Red colour. XY units are in decimal degrees. Press the Enter Coordinates button. Enter XY coordinate pairs as follows: Corner 1 Corner 2
X = 121.41 Y = -26.81 X = 122.98 Y = -25.52

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Click OK and then Exit. Choose Map>Save Cosmetic Objects to a new table Location Area. Then view the entire layer for Australia.

Step 9. Adding the Location Map to the Layout Window

The Location Map Window should be active. Select Map Making>Add Scaled Frame to Layout. Fill in the dialog box with the following parameters: Scale: Frame width: Frame height: Offset from left: Offset from top: Map centre:
1:100,000,000 5 cm 4 cm 23.6 cm 0.9 cm 133.38, -27.18

The location map is added to the layout window. If you are using A size paper, enter a value of 21.9 for Offset from left (x cm). From the Drawing toolbar, click on the Text Style button, and choose font size 8. Then click on the Text icon, position your cursor in the bottom left corner of the location map (in the layout window), and type Location Map.

Step 10. Exit Scaled Output and Plot Map

Choose Scaled Output>Exit. A dialog box appears allowing you to save the map grid, titleblock and a workspace. If you want to plot more copies of your map later, you should check the three boxes and enter appropriate table names to save the titleblock and map grid. If you dont, you may need to go through the scaled output process to create the map again. With the finally scaled map displayed you can the print the map by choosing File>Print. An example map with titleblock, legend and location map is shown below. You can nominate to use the Print to File option if you do not have the correct printer connected, or if you need to print multiple copies of this map at a later date.

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417000 m E

417500 m E

418000 m E

418500 m E

419000 m E

419500 m E

420000 m E

7106000 m N

E98/460

Location Map

7106000 m N

E98/459 7105500 m N 7105500 m N

Geological Legend Tiger Claim Group

Au Quartzite Permian Aplites, Diorites, Segmatites Carboniferous Basalts, Dolerites, Andesites Silurian Metagabbros Metadiorites Ordovician Felsic Porphyry Ordovician Lamprophyres Cambrian Gabbros, Microgabbros Pre-cambrian

7105000 m N

7105000 m N

Pb

Zn

Fault

E98/457

Anticline

Syncline

Alluvium Quaternary Colluvial Quaternary

7104500 m N

7104500 m N

E98/458
Encom Technology Tiger Snake Mining Geological Map Tenement Locations

Date:19/2/1999 Author: Office: Melbourne

7104000 m N 417500 m E 418000 m E 418500 m E 419000 m E 419500 m E 420000 m E

Drawing: Scale: 1:15000 Projection: AMG Zone 51 (AGD 66)

125

250 metres

500

Scaled map with titleblock, scalebar, legend and location inset

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11

Dataset Building Tutorial

In this tutorial you will learn the steps required to develop a polygon spatial dataset, using the example of building a geological map. Assume that you have been given a map, which is a hand drawn geological interpretation of the study area. The final digital map must show differing line styles for the linework, and all geological units are to be attributed and coloured appropriately. In order to build the attributed polygon map from digitized linework, we will perform the following tasks: Digitizing Cleaning linework Smoothing linework Building polygons Building a colour table Colouring the map Line annotation Labelling.

An Exercise in Building a Geological Map

There are a number of tables associated with this tutorial that are referred to frequently. The data is located in the Discover_Tutorial\Dataset Building directory and you are encouraged to view them.

Step 1. Digitizing
When the digitizer has been set up (see the MapInfo Users Guide for more information on digitizing in MapInfo), create two tables for the linework. Ensure that there is a character column in each table called Lifestyle and save this table in the appropriate coordinate system. The first table holds all the line segments that form the boundaries of the geological units (for example, lithological boundary, Fault - normal, Fault thrust, Unconformity etc). The second table holds all the line segments that do

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not form a boundary (for example, trend line and faults etc.). Note We are digitizing linework into two separate tables as this provides greater flexibility during the rest of the dataset building process. Decide what is to be digitized first, either a boundary or non-boundary, and make that table editable. You will find that you swap between entering data in both tables as the digitizing progresses. Use the Map Making>Styles Library function when digitizing the linework to apply the appropriate attribute to the linework. This function is applicable for lines, points and polygons. Select the style you want (see the on-line help to create new styles not listed in the Styles Library). For example, if you decide to digitize a fault, select Fault Normal. An example of the line style is shown in the adjacent style button. You can click on the line style icon to change the line style. At the bottom of the dialog box, place a checkmark in the box beside Apply style name as attribute. Under tables, select the editable table, and under column choose Linestyle. Click on Apply. Digitize the first Fault - Normal. The line has the correct style, colour and weight. Open a browser window of the table and the single record shown has the attribute. You may wish to have the browser open to the side of the map window so you can check progress. Return to the style library each time you need to change styles. Note Note that when you change to another table, you need to reset the Table and Column choices in the dialog box. As you digitize, ensure that you use the Snap function to join the ends of lines at every intersection (keyboard toggle key - S). Whenever two lines intersect you should begin a new line, though this can be done automatically at a later stage. You do not have to split lines when digitizing into the second table, because these lines do not form a boundary. If the boundary line being digitized has a sharp corner, you should break the line at the apex, otherwise when the line is smoothed, the definition of the sharp corner may be lost. There are two tables named Bound and Line2 in the Discover_Tutorial\Dataset Building directory. These tables represent examples of newly digitized data. Open these two tables and with a browser

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window open, check the attributes of the various line styles. See how the two tables contain boundaries and non-boundaries respectively.

Newly digitized linework split according to whether it forms a polygon boundary

The boundary table, Bound, is shown with a thin black line, and the Line2 is displayed with the thick black line. You can see how one line is split between two tables according to whether it forms a polygon boundary or not.

Step 2. Cleaning Linework

After digitizing is completed, both tables of digitized linework need checking. Ensure that where one line is split between two tables, the end nodes are snapped to the continuation lines in the other table. You may also want to manually smooth some lines that need a little adjustment (select the editable line- Edit>Reshape and modify accordingly), and look for line segments that are not snapped. The Line2 table needs checking as outlined above. The Bound table needs further work to make sure that it is clean for polygonizing. Select the Object Editing>Auto Polygonize menu item, and the Polygonize menu appears on the MapInfo menu bar. Choose the Clean Linework menu option from the Polygonize menu. You need to nominate a new table in which to save the cleaned linework. Check the Show Misclosures box and leave the Misclosure Tolerance value at 1. When this linework cleaning is complete, the screen shows your original table and a series of stars in a table called MisClose, which indicates the line intersections that need to be checked. If you display both the original linework and the new table (using style overrides of different colours for each) you can see which lines need further checking.

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Misclosures identified by the Polygonizer

This example is exaggerated. However, it does illustrate two common problems that need to be corrected for polygonizing to be successful. 1. 2. Over shoot Line continues beyond the point at which it should terminate Under shoot Lines do not continue far enough.

The stars in the map above are from the table MisClose, which was created by the Polygonize function, Clean Linework.

Step 3. Smoothing Linework

After digitized linework has been cleaned, you may want to smooth some or all of the lines. Smoothing does not affect the location of the lines, but can substantially improve the linework appearance by interpolating between original node locations. As noted above, do not smooth lines that have sharp corners. When smoothing, you can either smooth directly over the original lines or save smoothed lines to a new table. We recommend that you choose the latter option so that you can always revert to unsmoothed linework. Ensure your table of linework is open and select the lines you wish to smooth. Now choose Object Editing>Polyline Smoother and select the Save smoothed lines to new table option. When smoothing is complete, display both tables (the original and the smoothed) with different coloured style overrides. Check over the linework, looking for areas where the smoother has been too aggressive, or has adversely changed the line appearance. Edit the original linework, adding or deleting nodes in order to give the smoothing function a better line to follow. Close the smoothed table and repeat the procedure, on the original table, until the smoother has given the required result

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.Newly digitized data Bound

Same area smoother Boundsm

Open Boundsm from the Tutorial folder. Display with the unsmoothed Bound and compare. There are a series of magenta lines in the Boundsm that close off the linework for polygonizing, and are added after smoothing. When you add these lines make sure they are snapped at the ends.

Step 4. Building Polygons

Select all of the lines in the smoothed table of boundary linework, return to the Polygonize menu options and select Build Polygons . Check the Cut out inlying polygons box, save to a new table and click OK. When the polygonizer has finished, add the polygon table to the map window and assign a coloured fill style override. You may need to do some editing in the areas where polygons have not been formed. Check that the linework is snapped and clean. Use auto-trace (see the MapInfo Users Guide) with the polygon tool. Alternatively, copy specific line segments to a new table, create the polygon there and copy the changes back into the original polygon table. Open a browser of the polygon table. The newly formed polygons have the attributes of the original lines. Clear the attributes by updating the column. From the MapInfo menu bar, choose Table>Update Column and enter the following parameters: Table to Update Column to Update Get Value from Table Value
polygon LineStyle polygon

(ie. an empty text string)

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Although the linestyle field will ultimately be filled with the MapCode for each polygon, clearing this column first means that a simple query can be used to ascertain if any polygons have been missed when colouring the map. Choose Table>Maintenance>Table Structure and rename the first column in the polygon table from Linestyle to MapCode.

Step 5. Building a Colour Table

Before colouring the geological units (the polygons), a colour table must be created. This table will hold the geological codes for each polygon, the colour definition for each unit and a description, if required. As this is a completely new dataset, you need a new colour table. Collate a list of as many geological codes as you can from the original map. Have some idea of what colour scheme you wish to use for these codes and spend some time making sure that your list is complete. Choose the Colour Maps option from the Discover menu and select the Create Empty Colour Table option from the Choose Action dialog. Save a new colour table called Finalcol, and an empty browser is opened. From the MapInfo menu bar, select Edit>New Row. This adds a blank row to the browser. By holding down the Ctrl key and hitting the E key, you can rapidly add the required number of rows. When this is done, choose File>Save Table. In the browser, work your way down the MapCode column, entering the geological unit codes as you go. If required, add in the description information for each code at the same time. Go back to the ColourMap menu item and choose Action. This time with Select Colour Table checked, choose the new colour table and the first column in this table, MapCode. Click OK. Return to the ColourMap menu, and select the Edit Colour Table menu item. This dialog box allows you to highlight each geological code in turn and define the colour fill and linestyle. Select the code from the list and the region and line boxes appear. These are shown in black because they are the null colours. Choose the colour for this polygon code, and make sure that the Accept button is clicked before you go to the next code, otherwise your region and line patterns are not stored. As you choose patterns, the browser table will be automatically updated with the pattern descriptions in the appropriate columns. Click OK, and your colour table is ready for use.

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The example in the Tutorial Dataset Building directory is called Finalcol, displayed below without the description fields.

Colour table browser

You can go back and edit the colour table at any time. If you have a polygon code that is not in the table, you can add a new line to the browser, add in the code, and then edit the colour table as before to give the polygon code a region style. If you change the colour of a unit, during or after the map colouring, you need to re-colour the map, or select the edited unit and update the region colour style of the selected objects.

Step 6. Attributing and Colouring the map

To attribute and colour the polygon map with the new colour table (which is specific to this dataset), open a map window for the geological map and make the polygon layer editable. Using the select tools, select one or more polygons that has the same geological code (you need to ascertain this from the original drawn map). With the polygon(s) selected you can then apply the appropriate colour and attribute using the Styles Library function in Discover. From the Map Style dialog, choose the Use Styles from Discover Colour Table option. Select the new colour table, choose the column named MapCode, and click OK. In Object Attributes (at the bottom of the Map Styles dialog), check the Apply style name as attribute for new or selected objects option. Specify your polygon table and the column into which the geological code is placed (MapCode). Select the style to apply to the selected polygons and click on Apply.

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Attributing and colouring the polygon dataset with Map Styles

The selected polygon(s) are coloured. If you open the polygon table browser the code column will contain the updated geological code for the selected objects and the message window indicates the current style. Continue the process until all polygons have been coloured, using the Styles Library button on the tool bar to speed up the process. To check for polygons which have not yet been coded and coloured, use Discovers Select by Group and choose records where the MapCode = . You should also use the Styles Library to apply styles and attributes to linework such as faults and fold axes.

Step 7. Line Annotation

For linework that requires annotating, such as fault, unconformity and fold axes, Discover has a function that adds the annotations to the line table, or to a specific annotation table. Colour, size and frequency of the line annotation can be specified. Select the lines that you want to give the same annotations (that is, lines that are of the same type and where the annotations are facing in the same direction). You can select the lines easily using Discover

Select by Graphical Styles or Select by Group functions. From the Map Making>Line Annotation dialog box specify the frequency of the annotation symbol; line annotation type - character or non-character; annotation style - size, colour, direction etc. Use a map scale of 1:5,000,000, an annotation interval of 50 km and annotation size of 5.

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You should use the cosmetic layer as you can easily redo the annotation for a different spacing or size. When the annotation is completed, save the cosmetic objects to the annotation table. The table Finalann contains the annotations for our example dataset.

Fault annotation added to a line

Step 8. Labelling
To label the geological units, choose the Map Making>Text Labels menu option. Select the polygon table of geological units, and choose the MapCode column. In Label Style set the scale for the text (use 1:5,000,000), the text size and font, and any offset or label line requirements (not required for this exercise). The text labels appears at the specified size only at the map scale that you nominate. As the map is zoomed out, labels appear smaller, and vice versa.

Modifying the automatic placement of labels.

The labels are placed on the Cosmetic Layer and should be saved to a new table.

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Step 9. Workspace
Open the workspace TUTORIAL.WOR. This opens the final tables created from the original tables, Bound and Line2, together with the annotation tables. From Layer Control, note the order in which the layers are displayed. The polygon layer is at the base, with the linework above, and the text and annotations on top.

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Create and Analyse Surfaces Tutorial

This tutorial shows how gridded surfaces and contour plans can be created and used in Discover. A topographic dataset containing spot heights is used.

An Exercise in Surface Modelling and Analysis

Elevation data, stored as a series of spot height points, is located in the Discover_Tutorial \Surfaces directory in the table called Spot Heights. The objectives of this tutorial are to interpolate a surface grid and generate a contour plan from this data, create a profile, determine grid slope and aspect, perform sun-shading, and clip the grid to a region.

Step 1. Generate a Grid and Contour plan for Elevation data

Open the table Spot Heights. Choose Map>View Entire Layer, then select all points. From the Discover menu, choose Create and Analyse Surfaces, and the Surfaces menu is added to the MapInfo menu bar. Choose Surfaces>Grid and Contour>Triangulation. Choose elevation as the Z parameter to grid. Click the Make Grid button and enter a grid cell size (X and Y should be the same) of 150 m. For grid output, choose Save Grid as Raster BIL. Enter a table name such as Topo Grid. Click Save and OK. Next, click the Make Contours button. A minor contour interval of 100 and major contour interval of 500 should be chosen. Save the Output Contour Table to a table name Contours. Press Save and OK. All parameters have now been set up. If you wish to save them for future use, click the Save Setting button and enter a setting name, such as Demo1. Click OK. Click OK to start the triangulation. When complete, an elevation grid (commonly referred to as a DEM Digital Elevation Model) and contours are added to the map window. To make visualisation easier, you may want to choose Query>Unselect All to remove the point selection. Complete the exercise by closing all tables except for the one named Topo Grid.

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Step 2. Create a Profile

Open the Topo Polys table. This table contains coloured polygons representing elevation ranges. However, a polygon table containing geology could also be used. When a profile is created, the surface line is coloured according to the polygons intersected in the Topo Polys table. Make the Cosmetic Layer editable, and with the Line tool, draw a line across the centre of the image, from left to right. Then select the line. Choose the Surfaces>Make Profile button, and enter information as below.

Specifying parameters for profile generation

A map window opens containing the profile. You may wish to repeat the exercise and check the differences if Auto-scaling of z-axis is enabled, or Smoothed Profile is chosen. If you want to save your profile, you should click on the Save As button and choose an appropriate table name. Otherwise, the temporary table Profile is always overwritten. It is not necessary to enter polygon drape parameters. If left blank, a solid black line is drawn which represents the surface profile. However, the polygon drape option is useful for examining geology, tenements or vegetation crossed by the profile. Complete the exercise by closing all tables.

Step 3. Grid Queries

The surfaces module contains a powerful grid analysis tool that lets you select portions of the grid that meets specific criteria for elevation, slope and aspect. Grid cells that meet the specified criteria are saved as polygons in a new layer.

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Open the table Topo Grid. Select Surfaces>Grid Query>Select by Elevation, Slope, Aspect. In the dialog box, enter values as shown below. Choose a red fill for the region style.

Grid query parameters for identifying areas by elevation, aspect and slope

This query returns polygons for all grid cells that are between 500 and 800 metres elevation, on a slope between 5 and 10 degrees, and whose aspect is to the south. You may wish to verify the results by opening the Contours table and adding it to the map window containing the Gridquery layer. Experiment with other query parameters. Note The previous query is overwritten unless you choose a new name for the output table under Save Polygons to Table. Close all tables except for Topo Grid before proceeding to the next exercise.

Step 4. Creating a Slope or Aspect Grid

You can easily create a new grid containing slope or aspect values derived from an elevation grid using Discover. Choose Surfaces>Grid Arithmetic>Horizontal Grid Arithmetic. In the dialog box, enter Topo Grid as the name of the grid table, choose Slope as the operation, and choose Percent of Slope. Click on the Save As button, and enter the table name Slope Percent. Click OK to start processing.

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A new map window opens containing a raster image showing the percent of slope. The grid can be queried using GridInfo tool. Click on the GridInfo button, and then click on an area of the raster image that you wish to query. Discover reports the value for the central grid cell selected, as well as the surrounding eight grid cells. Repeat the exercise choosing Slope as the operation, and choose Degrees of Slope. Now repeat the process using Aspect, and create a grid illustrating the aspect of the DEM.

Step 5. Altering Grid Colours and Applying Sun Shading

Display the file Topo Grid in a new map window. It is currently displayed using the rainbow colour scheme. The grid colour should be changed to an elevation colour scheme with real-time sun-shading applied. To alter the grid colour, choose Surfaces>Modify Grid Display>Alter Grid Colours. Choose Elevation from the colour scheme list and full linear stretch. The grid is now displayed with colours ranging from blue (lowest) through brown to white (highest). In this same dialog you have the option of applying various forms of grid colouring, such as histogram equalisation, autoclip linear stretch, colour to percentile breaks and colour to data breaks. These are more appropriate when visualizing geochemical and geophysical grids. Choose Surfaces>Modify Grid Display>Sun-shading . Check the turn Sunshading On option. Set the sun angle to NW with an elevation of 50. Experiment with other colour schemes, sun angles and elevations. You need to set the sun-shading separately for each grid. Complete the exercise by closing all tables, except Topo Grid.

Step 6. Clipping a Grid

Often you may need to clip a portion of a grid to a polygon boundary. For example, you wish to have a geophysical grid clipped to a tenement boundary. Open the table Ten Poly containing a polygon mask representing a tenement boundary. Add it to the map window containing Topo Grid. Select the Ten Poly polygon.

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Choose Surfaces>Clip Grid to Region. Accept the default parameters, name the output grid Surface Grid, and click OK. The resulting grid appears. All steps covered previously may be applied to this new grid. Complete the exercise by closing all tables.

Step 7. Volume Calculations

Assume you wish to determine the total volume of regolith in your tenement area. To do this, subtract the surface elevation grid from the regolith elevation grid and calculate the volume contained in the resulting regolith thickness grid. The table Spot Heights contains columns for surface elevation and the regolith RL (Relative Level or elevation) value. We need to create two grids based on these surfaces, subtract the surface from the regolith surface (to get regolith thickness), and calculate a volume on the resulting area. Repeat Step 1 to create two grids, one grid based on the surface RL and one grid based on the Regolith RL column. Choose Inverse Distance Weighting using 6 nearest neighbours. Name the output grids Surface Grid and Regolith Grid respectively. Then execute Step 6 to clip the grids to the Stripping Poly boundary (in the Discover_Tutorial\Surfaces directory). Call the output tables Surface RL Grid and Regolith RL Grid. Subtract the two grids (Surface RL Grid as Input #1 and Regolith RL Grid as Input #2) using Surfaces>Grid Arithmetic>Merge Grids.

Subtracting 2 elevation grids to generate a thickness grid

The resulting grid contains the regolith thickness.

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To calculate the volume of regolith, choose Surfaces>Grid Arithmetic>Calculate Volume for a Level. Choose>0 for the level to calculate the volume to. The resulting answer is displayed in a MapInfo message box. The value is based on the grid Z scale as well as the map units, in this case, metres, thus the answer is in cubic metres. Complete the exercise by closing all tables.

Step 8. Points to Regions (Voronoi Polygons)

A set of Voronoi polygons can be created from point data and then mapped thematically. Open the table Spot Heights and choose Map>View Entire Layer. Select all points in the table with Query>Select All from Spot Heights. From the Surfaces menu, choose Surfaces>Points to Regions. In the dialog box that appears, specify an output table (call it Voronoi). Choose the default option of Clip Polygons to Convex Hull. Click OK. A new layer containing the polygons will be created. Each polygon has an elevation associated with it. Producing a thematic map allows you to visualize the results. Choose Map>Create Thematic Map. For users of MapInfo Professional version 4.5 and later, choose Region Ranges Default. Otherwise, press the Ranges button. Click Next and ensure that the table Voronoi and the column Elevation are selected. Click Next. The resulting default ranges are not what we require, so press the Ranges button and choose Custom as the method. Choose five ranges and break them down as shown. After entering the ranges, press the Recalc button prior to clicking OK.

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Creating thematic map ranges for Voronoi Polygon elevations

Click on the styles button and choose a colour for each of the five ranges. A suggestion is (from low to high values): blue, dark green, light green, yellow and red. Click OK twice. You may wish to overlay the Contours table to observe the relationship between these two derived datasets. Complete the tutorial by closing all tables and choosing Exit Surfaces from the Surfaces menu.

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3D Display of Grid Data Tutorial

The objective of this tutorial is to show you how to produce a 3D display of Grid Image data using Discover and MapInfo. You will also register a GeoTiff raster image for use in 3D display. In the previous tutorial you created a surface from point data using triangulation gridding. Such surfaces (or imported grids) could be used in this tutorial where we investigate 3 dimensional displays with overlays from other surfaces and data.

An Exercise in Grid Display and 3D Map Creation

The data for this tutorial is located in the Discover_Tutorial\3D directory.

Step 1. Setup Grid Configuration

Choose the Discover>Grid Configuration menu item and make sure the Use MapInfo Grid handlers (when possible) option is set enabled. This option ensures that the internal operations of surfaces uses the Grid Handlers supplied by Discover plus enables the use of grid handling for use in 3D. Note that the grid format selection is not relevant at this stage since it applies only to defining output formats. See the Discover Reference Manual for more information on Grid Image Formats.

Grid Format configuration enabling the Grid Handlers.

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Step 2. Register a Grid

From the Discover menu, choose Create and Analyse Surfaces. The Surfaces menu is added to the MapInfo toolbar. Select Surfaces>Register Grid File>ER Mapper Grid. Select and open the grid file DTM.ERS. The ER Mapper Grid Registration dialog is populated with the registration information contained in the header file of the grid.

Registering the ER Mapper grid and with its appropriate projection category.

Click the CoordSys button and select the Projection Category (Australian Map Grid AGD66) and Category Member (AMG Zone 52 (AGD66)). Click OK to assign the correct MapInfo projection to the grid image table and display the surface in a Map Window. This processing also creates a .TAB file with the necessary surface registration information for the image data imported in the ER Mapper image file.

Step 3. Alter Grid Colours and Modify the Grid Histogram

The ER Mapper DTM.ERS grid is initially displayed in the Map Window using a greyscale colour scheme. To alter the colour or histogram stretch of the surface display, choose Surfaces>Modify Grid Display>Alter grid colours. Choose newgrey from the colour pattern list and set Autoclip linear stretch to 99% of the data range.

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Grid Display Colouring dialog to control the image appearance.

In this dialog you have other options of applying various forms of grid colouring. Options include histogram equalisation, full linear stretch, colour percentile breaks and colour to data breaks. The most appropriate for displaying digital terrain data is using a linear stretch. Click OK after setting the Autoclip option. The grid is now displayed with grey colouring (the newgrey look-up table) ranging from dark grey (lowest) through to white (highest). As a variation of the displayed surface you could also choose the Surfaces>Modify Grid Display>Sun-shading . Enable the Sun-shading on option and leave the sunangle position as default.

Sun-shading dialog to modify the appaerance of the grid surface.

Note that the digital terrain surface indicates some areas of elevated topography surrounded by a relatively flat plain with occasional east-west sand dune lines.

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Step 3. Drape Vector Data over Raster Data in 3D

Open the table Geology and select Current Mapper as the preferred view. The Geology table contains polygons of the various geological units within this area. Also open the table Faults into the Current Mapper in the same manner. Note that the layering order (as indicated in the Enhanced Layer Control is Faults, Geology and DTM. This order (as for any Map Window), ensures that the faults and geology drape over the DTM surface. If one of the vector layers (Faults or Geology) were displayed below the DTM, it would not be visible. From the MapInfo menu, select Map>Create 3DMap. Alter the appearance of the 3D map by selecting Units as meters and change the Scale to 0.5. The Scale factor determines the extent of vertical exaggeration of the resulting 3D display. Leave the Camera and Light Position as default and click OK.

Dialog to create and control the appearance of 3D displays.

Once the 3D Map has been generated you can easily alter the properties of the 3D display. Click the right mouse button in the 3D Map window and select Properties.

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Figure showing the resulting 3D Image

To learn about navigation of the 3D display, try pressing and holding the left mouse button while moving the cursor in the display window. Also select the Zoom in, out and Pan MapInfo buttons and similarly use the cursor to alter the view position.

GeoTiff Registration and 3D Map Display

The DTM surface used in the example above is derived from an ER Mapper grid file. In the following section, a registered TIFF file (a GeoTiff) is used as input. GeoTiff images can be created in software packages such as ER Mapper or supplied from remote sensing vendors.

Step 4. Register a Raster Image

Select Tool Manager from the MapInfo Tools menu. Place a tick beside the GeoTiff Registration in the column labelled Loaded. This allows you to access the GeoTiff Registration processing. Note If the GeoTiff Registration option is not available in the Tools>Tool Manager, it needs to be added. Select the Add Tool button and provide a Title and Description of the application. From the Location browse button, navigate to the MapInfo Tools directory and select the GEOREG.MBX application. By specifying this .MBX file and clicking OK, the tool is then available for loading by the Tool Manager.

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Adding the GEOREG.MBX application to the MapInfo Tools list.

When available, select Tools>Georeg>Register a raster image and choose and open the RADIOMETRICS.TIF in the Discover_Tutorial\3D directory. A map window displaying the registered tiff is displayed.

Registered image of the Radimetrics.tif GeoTiff file.

Step 5. Create 3D Display

Open the DTM table into the Current Mapper displaying the radiometrics. Alter the display order moving the Radiometrics table above the DTM table using the drag and drop method of the Enhanced Layer Control (not in Grouped view).

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Enhanced Layer Control with order of layers repared for 3D display of DTM and Radiometrics layers.

From the MapInfo menu, select Map>Create 3DMap. Alter the appearance of the 3Dmap. Select Units as meters and change the Scale to 0.5. Leave the Camera and Light Position as default and click OK.

Figure showing the resulting 3D image

The resulting image has the radiometrics tiff geo-referenced and draped over the underlying DTM surface. As previously, you can manipulate the view of the 3D display as desired. Also included in the Discover_Tutorial/3D directory are a Total Magnetic Intensity ER Mapper grid (TMI.ERS) and a GeoTiff file (TMIRAS.TIF). You may wish to experiment further with these files in a similar way to the DTM and radiometrics surfaces. Complete the tutorial by closing all tables and choosing Exit Surfaces from the Surfaces menu.

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Drillhole Display Tutorial

This tutorial shows you how to produce drillhole cross-sections and plans using Discover. You will look at the data format required, learn the procedures for creating sections and learn how to produce a section layout. For more information on the Drillhole Display module in Discover, refer to the Discover Reference Manual. In order to display the drillhole data you will follow these steps: Prepare downhole data Validate the downhole data Map the collar locations Generate an elevation plan for the collar map Create cross-sections Create colour patterns for the downhole data Display downhole data on the sections View individual drillholes in log style display Digitize sectional interpretation Calculate sectional resource Composite downhole data Add a section to the layout window and print.

An Exercise in Drillhole Display

The objective of this tutorial is to produce a series of east-west sections and a plan section for inclusion in an assessment report. The dataset is a diamond drilling program conducted on a gold prospect, consisting of 11 holes totalling 1585 m.

Data Sources
Drill data (collar, survey, lithology and sample data) have been entered in the field into an Access database. Assay data have been returned from the laboratory in Excel format. Surface geology has been previously digitized and is in MapInfo format.

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Note

This tutorial uses an Access database, that can only be used with MapInfo Professional version 4.1 or later. These files are located in the Discover_Tutorial\Drillholes directory. The files are named DRILL.MDB, ASSAYS.XLS, and SURFACE_GEOLOGY.TAB.

Preparing Data prior to Viewing Drillholes

The Excel format assay data need to be merged with the assay intervals in the Access database Other Access tables need to be registered in MapInfo Objects need to be created for the collar locations A DEM needs to be generated from the collar elevations.

Step 1. Merging of Sample Data and Assay Data

Start by opening the Excel spreadsheet for assay data in MapInfo. Open the file of assay data by choosing File>Open Table and changing Files of type to Microsoft Excel. Highlight ASSAYS.XLS and press Open. Under Named Range, use the drop down menu to select Other. Change the start cell row number from A1 to A2 to account for column titles in Row 1. The window should now display Assays!A2:D318. Click OK. Put a checkmark in the box stating Use Row Above Selected Range for Column Titles. Click OK. A browser window opens displaying the columns SampNo, Au, As, Cu contained within this database. Open the Access database containing the sample data as follows: Open the file of sample data by choosing File>Open Table and changing Files of type to Microsoft Access Database. Highlight DRILLING.MDB and press Open. Highlight the Samples table and press OK. A browser window appears displaying the columns ID, HoleID, From, To and SampNo. You will need to modify the table structure of the samples database to append the assay information. Note that the original Access database is modified to incorporate your changes. Choose Table>Maintenance>Table Structure>Samples. Add the fields Au, As and Cu, all of type Float. Also, place a checkmark in the Index column for

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the field SampNo. Click OK and ignore the warning message that appears regarding unsupported fields. Now add the assay values to the samples database. Choose Table Utilities>Multiple Column Update. We wish to Update values in Samples and Get values from Assays. Complete the join condition where SampNo in the update table matches SampNo in the join table. Choose three as the Number of columns to update. Click OK. In the next dialog box that appears, ensure that the Au, As and Cu columns match up accordingly in both tables. Press the OK button. The assay information is added to the samples table. To make the changes permanent, save the table from the file menu. The Assays spreadsheet table can be closed.

Step 2. Opening the Remaining Access Tables in MapInfo

Open the collar, survey and lithology tables in MapInfo. As before, choose File>Open Table and change Files of type to Microsoft Access Database. Highlight Drilling.mdb and click Open. Highlight the Collars, Lithology, and Survey table. Click OK.

Step 3. Create Objects for the Collars

From the MapInfo menu bar, choose Table>Create Points. In the dialog box that appears, we want to Create points for table Collars. Click on the symbol icon, and choose a Red Filled Circle, 8 point font size and OK. Enter Easting for the x-coordinate and Northing for the Y-coordinate. Press the Projection button to choose the appropriate AMG Zone. Under Category, choose Australian Map Grid (AGD 66). Under Category members choose AMG Zone 51(AGD 66) and click OK. Click OK in the Create Points window. The collars can now be viewed by choosing Window>New Map Window. Note that if you dont click on the Projection button MapInfo uses the default longitude/latitude coordinate system. When viewed in a map window, the points would be stacked upon each other at the north pole (360, 90). If this happens, go back to Table>Maintenance>Table Structure and remove the check in the box Table is Mappable. Then repeat the procedure outlined above.

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Step 4. Generation of Contours from the Collar Elevations

You can optionally use a topographic surface with cross sections. If a topographic surface is not used, then the surface topography is inferred by joining together adjacent collars. If topographic data is not available, or as in this exercise, collars are closely spaced, the digital elevation model and associated contours can be generated using Discover. Choose Query>Select All from Collars. Next, choose Discover>Create and Analyse Surfaces. From the Surfaces menu that is added to the menu bar, choose Grid and Contour and Inverse Distance Weighting. Choose RL for the Z parameter. Press the Make Grid button and ensure the grid x, y cell size values are 5 m. Place a checkmark in the Save grid as MapInfo polygons box and enter the table name Surface_grid (save in the Discover_Tutorial\Drillholes directory). Press OK and then press the Make Contours button. We want to create Regular Contour Intervals, with 1 as the minor interval and 5 as the major interval. Place a checkmark in the box Specify minimum/maximum interval to contour between. Enter 80 as the minimum, and 90 as the maximum. Click the Output Contour Table button and enter Surface_contours (save in the Discover_Tutorial Drillholes directory). Then click Save, then OK twice, after which contours are drawn on the map window. Close all tables before proceeding.

Creating Sections
Step 1. Setup Discover to Create Sections
Select Discover>DrillHole Display. A menu item named Drillholes is added to the MapInfo menu bar, to the right of the Discover menu item. Choose Drillholes>Setup. Click the New button and enter a name for the drill project. For the tutorial, enter Drill Demo and click OK. Select the directory that contains the data (Discover_Tutorial\Drillholes,) and then enter the appropriate information in the Project Definition dialog as shown below. You can open the tables directly from this dialog if necessary.

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Defining a Drillhole project by selecting the data tables to use

When the OK button is clicked, the Assign Spatial Columns dialog appears. Ensure that the columns match the entries required. If not, use the drop down lists to match the appropriate columns. The sample dataset does not have a negative sign in front of collar dips. Therefore, leave the Down Dip is negative option unchecked. Depth units are metres. Click OK followed by OK again on the Choose Project window to complete the setup procedure.

Step 2. Validating your Database

Select Drillholes>Validate Database. In the dialog box that appears, choose the option Validate all Drillholes. Click OK. The data validation dialog allows you to specify the table to check and what criteria to check for. Choose the table Samples. Place checkmarks beside all options that have become enabled. In the Duplicate sample numbers in column selection, specify the column SampNo. Choose Output validation details to log file. Enter the file name RESULTS.TXT. Click the Save button, followed by the OK button. The validation results are also displayed in the message window.

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Open RESULTS.TXT in Wordpad. The results show that there are no problems with the data. If there were, problems would be listed, and it would be necessary to return to the original Access database to make corrections.

Step 3. Select the Collars to Include in the Section

You can select drill collars to use for a cross-section by three different methods: 1. You type in values for the easting, northing, line orientation and line length 2. You select the collars using the SHIFT key and left mouse button 3. You draw a line, select the line and specify an envelope width. You need to use the third method. Make the cosmetic layer editable, then select the line tool from the drawing toolbar and draw a horizontal line (left to right) through the bottom four collars. Your line should be drawn slightly north of the collars, so that all contour lines are intersected (make sure the Surface_contours table is open). If contour lines are not intersected, your profile consists only of straight lines (representing topography) between collars. Select the line you have just drawn. Choose Drillholes>Select New Section. In the Hole Selection by control group, check the Use Selected Line option. Specify an envelope width of 10 m. To produce a number of east-west sections, click on the Multiple Sections button and check the Generate Multiple Sections options. Choose 3 sections, with an offset to zero degrees of 20 m and click OK. Click on the Annotate button. Check the surface line display is turned on, and that the hole label size is set to 6 for a scale of 1:1,000. Note that in order to assist with file management you can save the sections to named sub-directories under the main project directory to assist with file management. Click on the Plot Now button to create the three sections, offset to the north in 20 metre increments.

Step 4. Editing Display Colour Patterns for Sections

Prior to displaying downhole data on the section, you need to create colour patterns relevant to the data ranges. For this example we create an individual pattern for lithology and a ranged colour pattern for grade-shading Au text values.

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Click on Drillholes>Edit Colour Patterns , select New Pattern in the Colour Pattern drop down menu and click Edit. . Enter a Pattern Name of Au_Shading, select Pattern Type as Ranged and number of ranges as 4. Click OK. Type in four from and to ranges and after each range click on the line symbol icon and select a colour to associate with the Au range. For example, Range 1: From 0 To 1, Line colour blue Range 2: From 1 To 3, Line colour green Range 3: From 3 To 6, Line colour yellow Range 4: From 6 To 100, Line colour red When plotting downhole Au values in Step 4, simply select Au_Shading to invoke the colouring scheme. To create the colour pattern for lithology, proceed as above for a New Pattern, but choose a Pattern Type of Individual, and check the Build colour pattern from values in a table checkbox. Name this pattern Rock_Colours. Click OK, and choose the Lithology table and the Rock column from which to get the code list. Choose the codes to include in the colour pattern (maximum of 16) and click OK. From the Colour Pattern Definition dialog, you then need to assign colours to each rock code. You can use a % in the code or value name to act as a wild card. Alternatively, you can use an existing Discover colour table instead of creating a new pattern.

Step 5. Annotate the sections

Select Drillholes>Display downhole data. A maximum of sixteen downhole variables can be plotted. For this exercise, however, you only display three. The sections are to be annotated with rock (trace shade centred on the drill trace), gold (Au) values as text to the right and arsenic (As) values as a line graph to the left of the drill trace. To specify the Rock display, use the table list (beside the first row) to select the table Lithology. Then pick the column name Rock from the next list, and choose Trace Shade from the display type list. Default parameters appears in a Trace Shade window and to select your lithology colour look up scheme setup in Step 3, click on the Colour Pattern drop down menu and chose Rock_Colours. Leave other settings so that the trace

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shade is 1 mm wide at a scale of 1:1000 with an offset of 0 mm so that it is centred on the drill trace. Then click OK. To define the Au text labels, nominate Samples, Au and Text in the second row of the dialog box. From the Text Labels dialog, select the Au_Shading colour pattern setup in Step 4, and place a checkmark in the Auto scale labels to fit intervals box. Leave the positioning set to display to the right of the drill trace. Repeat the process for the third row, with Samples, As, and Linegraph. Note the As values range between 20 and 3900 ppm. Given the wide data range, you need to set an appropriate scale. Set the range to 0.02 for map scale of 1:1000. If you use a higher value, a warning message suggests that you choose a smaller value. Set the line to a red colour, by clicking on the line style button and select red. Position the linegraph on the left side of the drill trace with an offset of 1 mm and click OK.

Part of the downhole data display definition dialog showing the current display scheme

Save this current data display setting, by clicking the Save button at the top of the dialog. Save to a setting called Drill Demo . This setting can then be used in future to ensure that sections are viewed with a consistent data display. Check the Display Annotation - Data Legend option so that the ranged and individual colour patterns are displayed as a key. Press Apply and select the three sections that have been created in the Apply to Sections box. Click OK. The selected downhole data is drawn on the three sections.

Step 6 (optional). Using Previously Created Sections

The sections that we have just created have been saved with the drillhole Section Manager. The section manager allows us to recall previously created

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sections and open them from a list. If you did not previously set the sections to be stored with the section manager, you can do this now. Select the Setup menu option, choose the Demo Drill project and click the Section Manager button. Click the Add button, select a section to add and press OK. Repeat the process to Add the remaining two sections. Press the Done button to finish.

Step 7. Producing a Log Display

Log displays can be used to display multiple columns of information for individual drillholes in an easy to view display. Up to 24 different columns of information can be displayed for a drillhole in a log. To produce a log display, return to the drillhole location map window (with geology, contours and collars) and select one drillhole. Then choose the Drillholes>Log Display menu item. The Global Settings button allows modification of a number of defaults, including global dimensions, display styles and data handling. Many of these settings can also be changed for individual columns. From the Drillhole log display window, choose the Lithology table from the list of tables at the top left. Now chose the Rock column from the Available Columns window, and click the >> button. Then click on the Settings button to choose the log display settings for this column. Select the Trace Shade log type, with the Rock_Colours pattern, and click OK twice. Then choose the Samples table and Au, As and Cu columns. Click on the settings button and choose Linegraph for the log type and the Fill from Trace Shade option to fill the linegraphs with the lithology log defined above. Leave the other settings and click OK twice. The four columns chosen for the log are now listed in the main dialog. You can alter the settings individually for these columns by clicking on the settings button. You can save this log display setting so that it can be used again later. Click OK and Discover creates the drillhole log for each of the columns. If you selected more than multiple drillholes, then a log for each drillhole would be created in a separate table.

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Step 8. On-screen Interpretation

Geological interpretations of mineralization or lithological boundaries can be digitized on screen from the sections that have been generated. Select one of the sections created above and click Drillholes>Boundary Digitizing>Digitize Boundaries. Discover automatically creates a new table to hold the digitized information. The table is called <section_name>_B and is automatically added to the section window and made editable. Any type of object may be digitized. For this exercise, digitize high-grade Au ore pods. From the Region Style button on the drawing toolbar, choose an appropriate colour. Then with the Polygon button selected, proceed to digitize the interpreted ore zones. After each ore polygon has been closed, you need to add the attribute data in the browser window in the column Feature_Code. Additional fields may be added to this table if required. Continue the on-screen interpretation for medium and low grade mineralization. Remember to File>Save Table on a regular basis. Once boundaries have been digitized, they may be exported as 3D DXF coordinates for use in another software package. Choose Drillholes>Boundary Digitising>Export Boundaries.

Step 9. Generating Sectional Resources

The resource calculator uses an inverse distance weighting interpolator to generate a sectional resource for any numerical downhole data. To create a sectional resource, you need to use one of the sections generated above and into which you have digitized some mineralization boundaries. Click on Drillholes>Sectional Resource Calculator. Choose one of the available sections and click OK. From the Select a Table list, click on samples. Click on Au in the From Column box and choose the option to use digitized boundaries. Enter volume/mass parameters and then click OK. Now select OK from the Gridding Section window to accept the grid defaults. The sectional resource will be processed and displayed.

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Step 10. Downhole Compositing of Attribute Data

The Discover data compositing feature allows the compositing of downhole attribute data by attribute, cut-off grade, elevation or downhole depth. You can composite by downhole depth by selecting Drillholes>Downhole Compositing>By Downhole Depth. Select holes DDH5 and DDH6. Click OK twice. In the dialog box that appears, select a 10 m composite interval and highlight the table Samples. Click the OK button to start processing. When processing is complete, you can observe the results by opening a new browser window for Samplescomp. This composite data can now be displayed in section just like any other downhole data table, as it is automatically added to the project. You may also wish to experiment with other methods of compositing.

Step 11. Display a Section Grid

To add a map grid to the section, make a section window the front map window. The grid is drawn to fill the current map window view. Choose Drillholes>Draw Section Grid. The x and depth spacing can be specified independently of each other. Choose an X-value of 25 metres and elevation of 20 metres. Use the default parameters of grid lines and labels at left and top, and ensure a check mark is in the Place labels in mask polygon outside map frame box. Click OK. If you are not satisfied with the grid position relative to the section, you can move the section and repeat the grid process. The previous section grid is overwritten, unless you change the default table name into which the section grid is created.

Step 12. Printing a Drillhole Section

The following assumes that the section is to be printed to A4 Landscape size (29.7 cm wide by 21 cm high). Choose Drillholes>Add Section to Layout. In the dialog, place a checkmark in Add Plan of Collars to Layout box, which results in a geological map with collar positions being drawn above the corresponding section. Enter the following frame parameters.

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Scale Frame Width (cm) Frame Height (cm) Frame Top (RL) Frame Left

1:1000 25 15 110 805585

Choose the section N8475240 and click OK. The section grid dialog box appears again and you should enter suitable parameters as described in step 11, then click OK.

Section 8475240N with data display legend printed from the layout window

A layout window containing the section will appear. Discover will have added information about the section to the layout window. If you do not want this information on the layout, select the text and press the Delete key.

Step 13. Printing a Drillhole Plan

Make the collar map window active. Select the collars of interest. Then choose Drillholes>Select New Section. In the dialog box that appears, choose Horizontal Plan (in the upper left corner). Type in a plan name and press Plot Now. If you wish to plot the plan, use the Add Scaled Frame to Layout or the Scaled Output function. Alternatively, if you wish to create a level plan within a certain elevation range, click on Use elevation range. Nominate the central elevation and an envelope width. Thus if you choose a central elevation of 35, with an envelope width of 10, only that portion of the hole from 45 to 25 metres elevation is displayed. Downhole data can be displayed on the plan section, using the same procedure as outlined for sections in Step 5.

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Index
3 dimensional displays, 103 3D display, 103 CoordSys button, 104 Create 3DMap, 106

A
Access database, 111 Add Scaled Frame to Layout, 38, 82, 83, 121 Add Tool button, 107 Adobe Acrobat
Reader software, 11

D
Data Normalize
geochemical data, 46 levelling, 46 percentile, 46 z-score, 46

Data Query, 46
Proximity Search, 46 Select by Group, 46 Tenement Search, 46 Text Search, 46

Alter grid colours, 104 Alter Map Bounds, 72 ASCII Object Import, 48 Autoclip linear stretch, 104

DigData
adding attributes whilst digitizing, 48

B
bitmap
images on screen, 14

digital terrain surface, 105 Discover

new features, 9 running on a network, 22 system requirements, 16 uninstalling, 20 user interface, 17

browse
in Reader, 13

Build Polygons, 89 Button bars, 16, 17, 18

C
Clip Grid to Region, 99 Clip Polygons to Convex Hull, 100 Colour Maps, 40, 90
colour look-up table, 40 creating a new colour table, 90

Displaying documents and images, 43 Document Display, 43 Donut Polygons, 50 drape surfaces, 106 Draw by Coordinates, 47, 82 Drillhole Display
add section to layout, 57, 121 collar location, 53 compositing downhole data, 60, 120 creating and using colour patterns, 116 data sources, 52 data validation, 59, 114 database relationships, 52 defining a drillhole project, 55 digitizing boundaries, 59, 119 displaying downhole data, 55, 58, 116 downhole data, 53 downhole survey, 53

colour pattern list, 104 ColourMap, 90 Configuration

auto-loading Discover, 21 changing, 21 Configuration Directory, 21 Program Files Directory, 21 setup and installation, 19 Temporary Directory, 21

Coordinate Transformation Tools, 45

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exporting boundaries to 3D DXF, 59, 119 interpolating resources, 59, 119 log display, 58, 118 ODBC data, 54 overview, 51 section manager, 117 using geology plans, 55 using gridded surfaces, 54 viewing drillholes in section or plan, 55, 115

L
Legend, 38, 78
re-ordering, 79

Light Position, 106 Line Annotation, 38, 76, 92 Line Cut, 49 Line Smoother, 48

M
magnification
size in Reader, 14

E
Edit Colour Patterns
of drillholes, 116

Edit Colour Table, 90 ER Mapper Grid Registration, 104 Excel spreadsheet, 111

Make Custom Titleblock, 38 Map Grid, 36 Map Labelling Tools, 41, 77, 93 Map Making
Add Scaled Frame to Layout, 38, 82 Colour Maps, 40, 90 Labelling, 41, 77, 93 Legend, 38, 78 Line Annotation, 38, 76, 92 Map Grid, 36 overview, 35 scalebar, 37 Styles Library, 40, 86, 91 titleblock, 36 vector polygon fills, 39, 75

F
Find
in Reader, 13

G
Geological Line Annotation, 38, 76, 92 GeoTiff images, 107 GeoTiff raster image, 103 GeoTiff Registration, 107 Global Settings button, 118 GraphMap
graph types, 44 linking graphed data to the source map objects, 44

Map Window Utilities, 71 Metadata Tools

overview, 72

Microsoft Access Database, 111 Microsoft Excel, 111 Misclosure Tolerance, 87

grid analysis tool, 96 Grid Configuration menu item, 103 Grid Handlers, 103 Grid Tools, 45 GridInfo button, 98

O
Object Editing
adding attributes whilst digitizing, 48 ASCII Object Import, 48 cleaning lines and building polygons, 49, 87, 89 cut out in-lying polygons, 50 Draw by Coordinates, 47, 82 Line Cut, 49 Line Smoother, 48

I
image
display on screen, 14

Installing Discover, 19

Index

117

Object Transformer, 38 thinning polylines, 49

Scaled Output, 35, 80

frame settings, 80 standard map sheet, 36 titleblock, 81 user defined map position, 80

Object Transformer, 38 Opening Multiple Tables, 72

P
PDF
file locations, 11 files and use, 11

search
in Reader, 13

Points to Regions. see Voronoi Polygons Polygonizer

cleaning linework and building polygons, 49, 87, 89

Section Manager button, 118 Sectional Resource Calculator, 119 See-Thru Shading, 39, 75 Select by Graphical Style, 46, 76 Select by Group, 46 Select New Section, 115 SETUP.EXE
installation program, 19

PostScript
and Reader, 15

print
documents from Reader, 15

profile
creation, 96

Profile. See Surface Creation and Analysis Proximal Polygons. seeVoronoi Polygons Proximity Search, 46

Q
Query
by Graphical Style, 46, 76

Show Misclosures box, 87 slideshows, 19 smoothing linework, 88 Smoothing polylines, 48 Snap function, 86 Spatial Catalogue. see Metadata Tools Structural Data Mapper, 45 Styles Library, 40, 86, 91 Styles Library function, 86 sunangle position, 105 sun-shading, 98 Sun-shading, 105 Surface Creation and Analysis
changing grid colours, 68, 98 colour stretching, 68, 98 colouring by percentile breaks, 68 contours, 63, 65, 95, 113 grid format, 64 grid query, 67 interpolation methods, 62, 64 inverse distance weighted interpolation, 65, 113 merging and clipping grids, 68, 98 overview, 61 profile over grid or contours, 66, 96 query by elevation, slope and aspect, 67, 97 registering ER Mapper and Geosoft grids, 69 search ellipse, 65

R
Reference Manual
usage, 12

Region Style button, 119 Register a raster image, 108 Register Grid File, 104 registered TIFF file, 107

S
Save Tables and Workspace, 72 Scale factor
vertical exaggeration, 106

Scalebar, 37

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sun shading, 68, 98 triangulation, 95 volume reporting, 67, 100 what is a surface grid, 62

topographic surface, 113 topography, 105 Trace Shade log type, 118

Symbols
Exploration, 40 Structural, 45

U
Uninstalling Discover, 20 Users Guide
about, 11 conventions, 15

T
Table Utilities, 71
Alter Map Bounds, 72 Multi-column Update, 112 Multi-Open, 72 overview, 72 Save Tables and Workspace, 72 Workspace Editor, 72

V
Voronoi Polygons, 69, 100
convex hull, 70

Tenement Search, 46 Text Labels

correct size for printing, 41 updating and modifying, 41

W
Whats New in Discover 3, 9 Windows, 16 Workspace Editor, 72

Text Search, 46 Thinning Polylines, 49 Titleblock, 36

customizing, 37

Z
zoom
in Reader, 14

Tool Manager, 107