New Features in PA 8.0

A new look Line Iterator toolbar has been introduced including a new location for the Line Iterator Properties including specification of the iteration type (Spatial, Standard or Sequential). The Line Selection option has changed from being a visible drop-down list on the toolbar to a new button which displays only the compatible lines.

A new utility for checking the compatibility of survey lines in multiple databases has been added to the toolbar and is the Line Report dialog. A table of loaded Geosoft databases is displayed listing their line numbers and line Gitmap ordinals and indicates whether the same GitMap Ordinals are not found in these databases.

Spreadsheet/Profile Data Linking

Encom PA 7.0 introduced the linking of data between a station location in a Curve or Section Profile display and a cell entry in the Spreadsheet display for that database. The reverse operation of this has been introduced in Encom PA 8.0. You can now select a cell in the Spreadsheet display and the corresponding station location in a Curve or Section Profile display will be highlighted with a vertical cursor.

Total Line Kilometers Calculation

A new Total Survey Length value has been added to the Spreadsheet view. To view, select the Structural Data Display Type after the survey database is highlighted in the tree on the left hand side of the Spreadsheet window. The value is computed from the sum of Chordlength fields in the survey database. Note: Chordlength represents the distance along a survey line from the point of origin and is recorded at each station location until the end of the survey line.

Grid Utility

The Grid Utility plug-in has more efficient, memory usage, improving the functionality to process larger grids. The utility now uses 50% less memory to perform the same operations as the previous version did, which equates to being able to load and perform any of the available grid utilities on a much larger grid input. More improvements on the ability for Encom PA to handle large grids will be introduced in the future version of the software.

ASCII Data to MapInfo .TAB Conversion

A new conversion utility has been added to the Conversion menu to allow an ASCII data file to be imported into Encom PA and converted to a MapInfo TAB file. This utility is called ASCII Data to MapInfo .TAB. This is extremely useful when importing ASCI data that contains String fields representing text descriptions that are intended to be used as labels for points and lines.

Grid Projection Information

Coordinate projection information for loaded grids is now visible in the Grid Information dialog of Encom PA. This information is accessed from the Grid Group Properties dialog for a 2D Map display, the Section Grid Group Properties dialog for Profile displays or the Surface Properties dialog for a 3D display.

Grid formats supported by this query tool are:

• ER Mapper (.ERS)
• MapInfo-Vertical Mapper (.GRD)
• Geosoft (.GRD) when a .GI header file is present

Grid projection information is also accessible from the Grid Utility by selecting the Display Grid Information button at the top of the utility interface.

Flight Path to Vector File Conversion

The Flight Path to Vector File is a new conversion utility that has been introduced to convert the display of Flight Path survey lines to a vector file. The utility is accessed from the Conversion menu and produces a vector file from a loaded database with a choice of the following file formats:

• MapInfo TAB files (.TAB)
• MapInfo MIF files (.MIF)
• ESRI Shape files (.SHP)
• AutoCAD DXF files (.DXF)
• Comma Delimited ASCII Files (.CSV)
• Google KML files (.KML)

The output files allow the flight path to be rendered as either Lines or Points.

Field Data Conditioning

A new function has been added to the Field Data Conditioning utility, and is available in Points series, Lines series, and Drillholes. The new parameter introduces a collection of advanced operations which can be added to the data conditioning process to enhance the displayed data further.

Flight Path Line Labels Drop-Out

When working with large datasets in Encom PA it has sometimes been difficult to view a flight path map of the survey lines with labels and flight direction symbols. A new option has been added to the Flight Path Properties to provide a label drop-out. You now have the option to display all survey lines but with only a select number of these labelled.

Stacked Profiles

An alternative file format for the output of Stacked Profiles has been implemented. An AutoCAD .DXF file format has been applied to the Stacked Profiles output utility to compliment the original .GSF file format, which could only be used within Encom PA.

The DXF file output can be used to overlay the stacked profiles on 2D map images such as grids or rasters. The output can also be used externally from Encom PA in applications such as MapInfo Professional. With the introduction of the option to output the stacked profiles to DXF format the bonus option has also been implemented to output DXF RGB values with them giving a larger variety of coloring.

Section to Map Utility

Improvements have been made to the Section To Map utility, which converts located images of vertical sections (e.g. CDIs) to plan view. To accommodate survey lines which are not linear in their orientation an option called Maximum Angular Divergence from azimuth has been implemented. This ensures that the angle of the vector for each node does not dpart from the line azimuth by any more than the specified angle anywhere in the line. In the case of a straight line that is locally quite divergent from the global line azimuth, if the variable is set to zero the located image will then be plotted at the line azimuth rather than the local azimuth.

A second option has been applied to the Section To Map utility called Compute baseline vector (regression). This re-computes the position of the baseline by projecting it onto a linear regression of the supplied survey line coordinates. By selecting this option any spatial deviations caused by local line azimuth deviations will be eliminated.

Improved 3D Lines and Points Series

The 3D Points series has been replaced in Encom PA 8.0 and displays an improvement in performance, color modulation and 3D rotation modulation. The improved Points series also includes data conditioning support. Similar to the 3D Points series is the updated 3D Line series, which replaces the existing Lines series and has similar features to the new Point series.

New Vector Series

Encom PA 8.0 introduces a new Vector series data object, which is designed to display vector and tensor data in 2D and 3D graphs and maps.

A 3D vector is defined by its origin and the x, y, z components or an origin with amplitude, dip and azimuth. The first is used to visualize vector magnetometer data and the second for dip and strike style measurements. A tensor on the other hand can be thought of as a collection of three vectors all located at the same origin.

Encom PA uses a database to provide the X, Y, Z coordinates and component fields. The direction of the vector can be defined by rotation angles (origin and rotations), requiring two angles - a Y-axis rotation and a Z-axis rotation. In 2D however this just requires a single Z-axis rotation.

Drillhole Creator Utility

The Drillhole Creator utility is an exciting new addition to the Encom PA Professional package. A series of drillhole collars locations are created using the point digitizing capabilities of the Feature Manager. The Drillhole Creator then produces a drillhole database using drilling depth, dip and azimuth information.

The Drillhole Creator can generate drillhole collars using an empty feature database with manual picking from a 2D grid image or else collar locations picked in another feature database or imported from an external file source (e.g. MapInfo or ArcView) can be loaded into the Drillhole Creator and used for the collar interactions.

Search Parameters in 3D Gridding

The latest version of the 3D Gridding available in the Voxel Toolkit (previously named 3D Grid Toolkit) has expanded the 2D search ellipse. This previously was only defined by the X and Y axes and strike of the lines or holes, now full 3D ellipse with XYZ axes and Strike, Plunge, Dip angles are available.

The elliptical weighting option has also been upgraded to take account of this 3D ellipse so that a 3D anisotropic distance is computed for samples contributing to the estimation where the distance in the major and minor horizontal axes of the ellipse is shortened by the ratio of the axes lengths to the minor vertical axis length.

This 3D Search improvement applies to the Continuous Gridding methods i.e. Inverse Distance Weighting and Kriging as well as the Distance to Data gridding method. The latter allows users to compute the anisotropic distance between grid nodes and sample data.

These improvements will allow users to easily introduce a bias into the grid estimation. For example, at a new prospect the best information know about the direction trend of mineralization is that it seems to conform with the geology. It is therefore likely that the rough strike of the geology is known and also the dip. In general the drilling will be along strike and against the dip. This provides a sufficient estimation of the degree of bias determined by the ratio of the axis radii to the vertical axis radii.

Improved Property Transition During AVI Creation

The data object property capturing system for the Fly-Through Wizard has been improved so that all properties for any data object visible in a 3D Display can be automatically captured when a fly through event is recorded. In Encom PA 8.0 the user would set the data properties via the Properties dialog within the Fly-Through Wizard. In the latest version of Encom PA properties are now automatically captured from the current object states set in the workspace tree whenever the user creates a new fly-through event.

Objects that properties are captured for are:

• Lines
• Points
• Drillholes
• 3D Vector File
• 2D Vector File
• Images (EGBs)
• Surfaces
• Voxel Models
• Features
• 3D Flight Path

Microsoft Windows XP Appearance

Encom PA and associated plug-in utilities now display the Microsoft Windows XP controls, look and feel giving the interface a fresh appearance.

Export Located Image to MapInfo .TAB

The pop-up menu in 2D maps that allows you to Save as Loctated Image now has the option to save the image as a MapInfo TAB raster file. This allows for a more streamlined operation of importing the raster image into MapInfo Professional.

Isosurface Slice Outlines

An additional Export option has been applied to the Export wizard for Voxel Models to allow the export of slice outlines through any nominated voxel isosurface. The isosurface slice outlines are produced in all three X, Y and Z dimensions for the voxel model and can be output as a single slice (i.e. a specified X, Y or Z coordinate) or multiple slices in DXF, TAB, MIF, SHP or EGB (located image) file formats.

When exporting isosurface slice outlines in X, Y and Z in the one operation, the coordinate slice sets are output to separate files.

Use the DXF output option to display isosurface slice outlines in 3D or use the EGB export option to display the isosurface slices in section profiles containing Conductivity-Depth Images or geological cross-sections.

Before exporting isosurface slices any selection of minor isosurfaces can be omitted by using the Surfaces button in the Isosurface tab dialog.

3D Located Images, Drillholes, Lines and Points for Feature Snapping

It is now possible whilst digitizing in 3D to select a Line or Point series in the workspace tree. The ability to select these objects (as well as Located Images) enables them to be used in conjunction with the Feature Manager. When digitizing in a 3D display these data objects can then be used for feature snapping to more accurately position feature objects.