In the current market circumstances, it has never been more important to be able to present an idea. Whether it is a new drilling design for your manager or a presentation of a potential project for investors, an idea can only be implemented by demonstrating its viability.

With ever-expanding expectations of digital culture, it’s hard to impress anyone with a traditional presentation. Great 3D visualisation, and especially video, is much more illustrative and understandable than a map, section, or table. This becomes even more important when specific technical information needs to be explained to people who are not experts in the field.

The trend of creating videos using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for advertising content has developed significantly in recent years. Such videos are quite impressive and generally show a panoramic view of the terrain. Instead, videos created with the use of motion design technologies allow you to show models of surface and underground real and virtual objects, such as drill holes, geological and resource models, open pits and underground mines, etc.

The special functionality of Micromine Origin&Beyond allows you to create videos without any additional software. Optionally, the video can be further processed using special montage technologies to add video effects, overlay sound or subtitles, etc.

Workflow of creating a video in Micromine Origin&Beyond includes define the data display in Vizex, creat and set up the camera’s flight path, trace and edit the flight path, add, delete, or modify viewpoints, video preview, settings and recording the video.

1. Setting up the data display in vizex.

Firstly, all the data that is planned to be used in the video, such as drill holes, wireframe or block models, mine workings, etc., should be visualised and set up.

To create new data layers (forms), use the Vizex Layer Types panel, and to configure and edit them, use the Vizex Layer Display panel.

The video can be created in several versions using different data sets, from which you can choose the most suitable one or combine several versions into one video.

2. Create and set up the camera’s flight path.

The camera’s Flight Path is a polyline, each node of which represents a point with individual camera view settings.

To activate the Flight Path functions, go to Vizex > Display Layers > Flight Path > New/Open.

The Flight Path toolbar allows to create a new flight path, open an available one, and set its options.

Flight path options include timing (for the entire path or between points), tension (determines the smoothness of the path), line visibility in video recording, point or path segment labels, etc.

3. Trace and edit the camera’s flight path.

The String Editing toolbar provides tools for creating new strings and polygons and editing them by extending, adding points, dynamic input, etc. The created string is the camera flight path and is saved in the corresponding *.VFLY file.

4. Add, delete, or modify viewpoints.

The View toolbar allows you to turn on and off the perspective mode, and change the direction of view without changing the point coordinates.

Using the Flight Path > Viewpoint tools, you can edit (Modify) and delete (Delete) viewpoints, add them before (Insert Before) and after (Insert After) the current one. A special window (Current) and a slider allow you to adjust the current viewpoint.

You can add new viewpoints and change the view direction to step by step create a camera flight path, which can be edited later if necessary.

The camera flight path file contains a set of viewpoints, each of which has individual coordinates, azimuth, and camera rotation angle. This file is interactively linked to the vizex, so editing the file changes its display and vice versa.

5. Video preview.

Flight Path Play tools allow you to: play the video using the active camera flight path (Play); stop playback at the current point (Stop); move to the previous (Previous), next (Next), first (First), or last (Last) point of the flight path.

The Repeat Playback mode causes the camera’s flight path to play back cyclically until it is stopped by pressing the Stop button. If Repeat Playback mode is not active, pressing the Play button will start the flight path playback only once, starting from the current viewpoint and ending at the final viewpoint.

In most cases, you need to make several iterations of editing the camera’s flight path and previewing the video until you get the final result.

6. Settings and recording of the video.

When creating and setting up a camera flight path is complete, it can be converted to an MP4 or WMV video using the Create Movie tool.

Video recording options can be set using the Options button on the same toolbar, including file name and format, resolution (in pixels), and the number of frames per second.

The described functions of Micromine Origin&Beyond facilitate the presentation and understanding of an exploration or production project and allow you to demonstrate its location and geology effectively, visualise all available data, including drill holes, wireframe and block models, show how the designed drill holes or mine workings will look in reality, etc.

A few life hacks will make video creation quick and easy:

  • • before you start working on a video, think about its concept and the main message that best visualises your main idea,
  • • do not overload the video by displaying many data together, if necessary, create several videos, show the data one by one, and then montage them,
  • • use low quality and low resolution for preview versions of your video to speed up your work.