Maptek said Evolution 4.5 features the graphics environment which already provides Maptek I-Site, BlastLogic and Eureka software users with a superior visualisation experience.
"The high-performance graphics engine can display and manipulate large models of several hundred million blocks, along with the solids and triangulations that make up those blocks,” said Steve Craig, manager of scheduling solutions at Maptek.
Evolution Strategy and Origin allow the engineer to achieve practical, high-value schedules that can be implemented at a production level. Evolution Phase is a new member of the family. This product allows the engineer to build practical phases from a series of optimal shells very quickly. Being able to cycle rapidly through this process ensures value is maximised from pit optimisation through to schedule optimisation.
Evolution Strategy maximises net present value and generates cut-off grade optimisation policies. New options allow users build blend constraints and to track and report multiple elements and contaminants per process and/or destination. Existing stockpiles can be modelled with tonnage and grade items.
As well as minimum and maximum accumulation constraints for multiple processes, a global minimum cut-off can now be specified. Improved charting and export of schedules across multiple elements and processes is also included in upgrades to Strategy in this release.
Evolution Origin generates detailed scheduling scenarios from life-of-mine to short term planning horizons and can apply optimisation policies generated by Strategy.
In version 4.5 users can now set maximum constraints per stage/group/period for manipulating sequences through the model. Specifying multiple truck types to work in the same mining area allows for mining different material types with different equipment.
Improved interoperability for haul network creation allows users to drag and drop a haul network created in Vulcan Envisage into Evolution to automatically configure the schedule network. Multiple digger fleets can also be allocated.
Other features of the Evolution 4.5 release include selecting imperial and metric units and currency and customising settings that persist into reporting and tabulations.