Review of the New Features of Micromine Beyond 2025
In November 2024, an updated version of the software product for mining design, planning, and support, Micromine Beyond 2025, was presented.
Micromine has developed new interactive tools and features for immediate display of Blast Ring Design, interactive editing of pit roads, visualisation of pit shells, and on-the-fly reflection of changes made.
Watch a video from the Micromine Beyond 2025 Release here.
The main improvements cover three sections: Pit Design, Production, and Scheduling.
Pit Design
Pit Shell Display
The Pit Shell tab has been added to the Pit Design setup dialogue to allow the configuration of the Pit Shell display.
The pit shell and contours for the design can be set to display, and the transparency, colour set, line, and spacing settings configured. The pit shell can be clipped by the topographic surface.
Topography Clipping
Topography Clipping options have been added to the Pit Lines tab of the Setup tool in the Mining section of the Pit Design (Dynamic) toolbar, in the Parameters group: to configure whether generated Pit Lines above the defined Topography are clipped, and whether to hide or display the clipped segments, as well as the clip lines. Here you can set the visual appearance of lines, their types, and display.
Move the Road Tool and display the Entry Point
The Move Road tool has been added to Pit Design (Dynamic) to allow the relocation of roads within the open pit design.
To move it, click the Move Road tool, select the road string, and specify the new road location. The pit design update will on the fly to reflect the changes made.
In the Setup tool, on the Pit Roads tab, display options for the Entry Point have been added, which is used as a marker for interactive road movement. You can configure the appearance and colour of the entry point. With the Show always option enabled, the point is displayed constantly, while with Show for selected, the road point will only appear when a road is selected.
Pit Constraints
In the Mining section of the Pit Design (Dynamic) toolbar, tools have been added to the pit or dump boundary toolbox, which allows you to define the design area using polygons.
The Add Constraint tool allows you to add the selected polygons/polygons as a pit (dump) constraint.
The New Constraint tool allows you to create (digitise) polygons/polygons as a pit (dump) constraint.
External constraint. In Shrinking mode (Pit/Down, Dump/Up), the pit will be projected outside the intersection of the constraint polygon and the pit string. In Expanding mode (Pit/Up, Dump/Down), the constraint expands the design area.
Internal constraint. In Shrinking mode (Pit/Down, Dump/Up), the projection occurs in the middle of the intersection of the polygon with any pit lines. In Expanding mode (Pit/Up, Dump/Down), the constraint will expand the design area outwards.
Edit Road Pick Point
The Pick Point in Vizex option has been added to the Road Properties form to allow the interactive selection of Entry Properties. When the button is clicked, the form collapses and you can use the cursor that is enabled to select the coordinates for the Entry Properties and Entry taper length if necessary. The default value is Auto, as a suitable taper distance is automatically calculated based on the width of the road.
Variable Constraint Smoothing
In the Mining section in Pit Design (Dynamic) tab, a Smoothing slider has been added to the Variable Constraints tool. It applies a smoothing algorithm to the variable constraints and prevents sharp bends at the transition for the projection. Slide to the left for no smoothing and right for maximum smoothing. Alternately, enter a value between 0 and 200 in the field at the right.
Watch a video about variable constraint smoothing and pit shell display here.
Production
DTM and Solid Reconciliation
In the Mining section of the Production tab, new DTM Reconciliation and Solid Reconciliation tools have been added. The DTM Reconciliation tool is also available on the Grid/DTM tab, in the DTM Tools group. The Solid Reconciliation tool is also available on the Wireframe tab, in the Operations group.
DTM Reconciliation
The DTM Reconciliation tool has been added to the Mining tab, in the Production group. It uses the specified input files to generate and reconcile the quantities of excavation and fill solids between a sequence of surfaces, contour files, or pit designs to reflect differences between planned and mined material.
Solid Reconciliation
The Solid Reconciliation tool has been added to the Mining tab in the Production group to determine the difference between the planned and actually mined material. As a result, three types of frames are created: Cut/Underbreak Wireframes – planned but not mined; Fill/Overbreak Wireframes – mined earlier than planned; Common Wireframes – material that was both planned and mined.
Preview and Interactive Placement Ring Design Plane
In the Mining section of the Ring Design tab in the Create New Ring tool, a new feature has been added, which allows users to view a silhouette of the virtual plane where the ring will be positioned, and interactively move it. Additionally, parameters such as Name, Ring Azimuth, and Dump Angle can be defined.
Watch a video about Interactive Underground Ring Placement here.
Display the Planes of designed Ring Fans and Drive Boundary
The Ring Plane tab has been added to the Ring Design form to enable the display settings for the silhouette to be configured.
The Drive Boundary options have been added to the Drive tab on the Ring Design form to enable the configuration of display settings for the drive boundary polygon. The drive boundary is always displayed as a line, which can be changed in colour and thickness.
Snap of designed blast holes to the bench surface and floor
The Bench surface and Floor surface options have been added to the Insert Hole, Add Row, and Extend Row tools to the Blast Design tab, in the Drillhole Pattern group. These new features are available for Insert Hole, Add Row and Extend Row tools and improve blast hole design and editing by allowing snap to bench topography or planned floor DTMs (Digital Terrain Models).
Scheduling
Import and Reserve Task Wireframes
The Reserved Task Wireframes task source has been added to the Schedule Definition tool to import tasks wireframes for which quantities have already been calculated and assigned.
The Task Wireframes source has also been added to provide a way to import task wireframes for which quantities are required to be calculated from available block models.
Multiple Period Scheduled Tasks
Optimise tool In the Mining section of the Schedule toolbar allow tasks to be completed over multiple consecutive periods. This is made possible by adding two new options: Maximum task split duration (days) and Constrain period assignments by task duration.
When a value is set for Maximum task split duration, tasks that are longer than the specified period duration will be automatically divided into smaller parts (or “splits”), each matching the period duration.
When the Constrain period assignments by task duration option is selected, tasks are constrained to be assigned to a later period (where all other constraints allow it).
Custom Dynamic Quantities
Custom dynamic quantities can now be defined in the Optimise Material Flow tool and included in objectives and constraints for material flow optimisation. Advanced quantity definitions can be saved and loaded as form sets.
Break Selected Dependencies
In the View section, in the Interactive Dependencies group, the Break option has been added to enable the deletion of all links in the dependency chains between selected tasks. This will break dependencies between the selected tasks, while dependencies between tasks that are selected and tasks that are not will remain.
Scheduler Attribute Colour Set Assign
In the Scheduler Wireframe Display Options form, the Colour Set function has been added to the Colours tab, where you can assign colours by various attributes. This option will only appear for numeric colour sets.
