UI. Final Surface Tool
The Create Final Surface tool allows users to extract the lowest surface from any combination of solids and surfaces. The result is coloured according to which solid or surface each part of the lowest surface comes from. The tool can be accessed from the Layers panel, through Tools button dropdown > “Create Final Surface” option, with at least one surface or solid selected.
A set of surfaces is generated and placed in a folder at the end of the process. One surface is generated for each input that has anything in the end result, plus one more for vertical faces that are automatically created to join any surfaces that touch when viewed from above.
Created surfaces will share the color settings and the names of their sources, allowing users to quickly identify the input surface source for each part of the resultant surface.
Result layers share the source surface’s colors and name, for quick identification
From here, the user may use the results in one of several ways. With all the surfaces on, it is possible to see a lowest surface created from all the inputs. An example of what this might represent is the visualisation of end-of-period compliance, where one might see a combination of surveyed and designed lowest surfaces. In this example, toggling off the surface generated by the topography might show any regions which was planned to be extracted, but had not actually been reached in that period. Contributions of individual dig blocks or pit solids can also be seen by enabling specific output surfaces and the topography at the same time.
Note that if two surfaces are very close to each other, the result may appear somewhat disjointed. An example can be seen in the image below to the right, where the bottom surface of a dump solid is virtually the same as the topography in the region where the dump solid exists. In the case of a pit solid’s bottom surface, this result indicates that the extraction of material from the pit in reality is very close to the designed pit.
Changing the colour and visibility for all the results can be done by changing the respective value on the final surface folder. Combining the surfaces together into a single surface can also be done using Tools > Consolidate.
The tool will handle intersections between any input surfaces and solids. If there are multiple surfaces that would intersect at a given space, the lowest of all inputs is given in the result. An example is provided below to illustrate this:
Input surfaces. Two pit solids intersecting in the middle, and a dump solid below. Topography not shown
End result. Note the yellow pit surface extending below the bottom of the purple, and the red/green surface formed by the intersection of the topography and bottom of the dump solid