Use of B-splines in development of automated geological-surveying support system

Purpose. The effectiveness of the development of an information system for quarry management is primarily determined by the level of geological and surveying support (GSS), which includes solving such basic tasks as calculating reserves (operational and complete), accounting for ore mining, building the information base for mining planning and management, and field modeling, and career, ore body contouring, etc. The purpose of this work is to develop and use B-Splines in the automation of geological surveying software in the quarry. Research methods. The basis of many tasks is the construction of surfaces. For the first time in recent years, an uneven rational Bspline (NURBS) is used to describe them, which most fully satisfies the following criteria: the model's adequacy to the real representation, the efficiency of model formation and surface construction, and the visualization of the model in three-dimensional space. Scientific novelty. The advantages of constructing surfaces using NURBS are as follows: ease of calculation; sufficient smoothness; construction of the surface of any degree of complexity; using the weights of the control points, control of the surface (it can pass strictly through the specified control points). The latter property made it possible with the help of a NURBS surface to effectively model the day surface of a quarry with a strict passage of the surface through points of the ledges. Practical significance. For the joint Russian-Mongolian enterprise Erdenet (Mongolia), developing the copper-molybdenum deposit, an integrated automated GSS system has been developed and has been in operation for many years. Software and algorithmic tasks of the system are constantly being improved. This article presents its latest developments and development paths. The use of NURBS allowed us to construct the day surface of the open-pit mine, to improve the complete calculation of reserves, the accounting of ore mining, and the delineation of ore bodies along the open-pit horizons. Results. The software is implemented in C++ and C# for Windows. To build three-dimensional graphics, the tools of the open graphic library OpenGL are used. Separate modules of the developed GSS system were used at the Novokrivoyorogsk and Ingulets mining and processing plants. The methodology for constructing automated GSSs has been approved by many years of positive experience in industrial implementation and can be used for non-ferrous ore and iron ore deposits.