Development of a Visual Navigation System for 3D Virtual Mine

Our research is to develop a system of effectively visualizing large scale geographically related data sets and demonstrate to the industry the advantages of integrating topographic, geological, geophysical and mine planning data through three dimensional (3D) interactive computer visual simulation. Easy-to-use methods that permit users to navigate through a scaletrue visualization and interact with it are implemented. The visual system developed by the authors is to investigate mining environment by analyzing large quantities of geographical data. Analyzing correlations between ore body and the mine planning can be done well by placing graphical representations of the data directly into virtual 3D representations of the mining environment. Navigation in time is used to provide assistance for data selection and to enhance the flexibility of the visualization. Real data derived from an iron mine in Wuhan City of China demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of the system. A case study with the results and benefits achieved by using real 3D representations and navigations of the system is given.