KF 2023-11-20

Surpac Tips and Tricks Using Planes

We are excited to share a new Surpac tip all about using Planes. Depending on the Surpac era you were brought up in will depend on how you are using the section functions within Surpac. Here are some quick tips on the Planes Method that you may find useful.

Creating Vertical Sections and Level Plans

Open up the ores solid and display the grid
Pin the quick Planes toolbar
Select Quick planes

Select the orientation. In this example, we are selecting Northing, but Easting and Elevation can also be selected. (Oblique sections will be covered in the next section)
The start and end coordinates will be automatically filled out. Adjust them to the area of interest. Fill in the interval/distance between sections.
The window away and towards will be automatically filled out to ½ the distance entered in the “interval between plane.”
Enter the suffix for the plane/section name
Enter the group name.

All the sections will be created and stored in a folder named in step 8.
The window away and towards can be adjusted on the fly.

If you want to hardcode the window away and towards, then right-click on the section you want to adjust and select properties

Select the section
Adjust the window away and towards. Then click apply. This will hard code the change into this particular section.

Creating Oblique Sections

Open up the data and measure the distance the oblique sections are to cover. This function can be activated by typing in BD into the function line.
Click on where you want the first section line and drag until you reach the end of the area where you want the sections to be cut through.
In the message window, you will see the horizontal distance.

Select Quick planes
For the orientation, select “Oblique”
In the plane range, enter 0, then the distance to be covered by the oblique sections, then the distance between the sections.
Enter in the plane corridor or the window away and towards
Enter the suffix. M stands for meters, as 0 is the first section.
Enter the group name.

Click on the start of the section line and drag in the direction of the orientation for the section.
Release the mouse
The coordinate window will appear. You can adjust the coordinates if you know the exact numbers, else, leave.

The oblique sections will be created. Remember, section 0 is the first section and section 600 is the last section, 600m away.
Select the 2D/3D grid button to get the screen into the section view

Display options within the planes toolbar

Within the planes toolbar, you can turn the triangle display to a polyline.
You also can display the block model attributes

Displaying Block Model Grades

Open up the block model
Colour by attribute
Create a graphical constraint so you are just seeing the blocks you are interested in

Activate the section plane.
Select the 2d/3d Grid

Select the button to display attributes on the section and fill in the attribute you want displayed.

Inclined planes

Sometimes, an inclined plane may be required to create a long section to see the density of drilling within the dipping ore zone. This function sits under the “Planes Menu.”

Open up the DTM you want to create an inclined plane through
Planes>Inclined>Plane through 3 points

Right-click and change the snap mode to triangle.

Select 3 points on the dtm.
You will see the inclined plane displayed.

To adjust the colour or transparency of the plane window, go to Customise > Default preferences > Graphics colours > Plane > Transparency. Adjust to 100% if you don’t want it visible.

To save the plane, Planes>Save the current plane as. Enter the group name it is to be saved to and the plane's name.

Once saved, you will notice that the window away and towards is set to 1000. Remember, you can adjust the window via the properties of the plane.

Saving Plane Section or Group to a String File.

Once the plane group has been created, you may want to save some of the sections as string files to export out to other packages or to help with section interpretations.

Planes>save section to string file OR save the Plane group to string file. Enter the prefix for the string slices; they will automatically have the section number included in the string file name. You also have the option to save the styles file if need be.

Re-sequencing the plane sections

Sometimes, in-between sections may need to be created after the main plane group has been created. These new sections will be out of sequence. To place the sections in the correct sequence

Right-click on the section before and select properties. Take note of the sequence number.
Repeat the process for the section after.
Right-click the section to be re-sequenced, then adjust the sequence number to fall between the abovementioned numbers. Eg. The first section may be sequence 600, and the next section may be 700, so the new section needs to fall between 600 and 700.. e.g. 650

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