FOR MINE PLANNING
A pit design is a set of assumptions about a surface, and the surface changes every month. Most planning errors are not arithmetic — they are a bench template daylighting against a plane that no longer exists, or a ramp that fits on the plan and not on the ground.
Bench templates are built from the boundary you drew and daylight where the slope profile actually meets the current surface. Toe and crest positions follow the surveyed ground rather than an idealised plane, which is where the difference between a plan and a workable design usually lies.
The design can then be written into the working terrain, so contours, cross-sections and any later analysis read the graded ground instead of the original.
Overall slope angle past your geotechnical limit, a berm too narrow for machine access, a slope that crosses itself at a re-entrant corner, a design that never daylights, and a partial last bench are each flagged with the value and the limit it breaks.
These are the failures that survive a visual review because the drawing looks reasonable — the overall angle in particular, which is always flatter than the face angles and is easy to satisfy on paper while breaking in section.
Haul road alignment is placed on the terrain with circular curves and, where needed, clothoid transitions; the vertical profile is built against a ground line taken from the DEM. Ruling grade, minimum radius and sight distance are re-checked after every edit, with the station where each violation occurs.
You get station cut and fill areas, a quantity table and a mass haul view of the balance — the numbers a ramp decision actually turns on.
Cut and fill against a reference surface gives the quantity for a phase; the same tool run in the other direction gives the capacity of a spoil dump rather than its excavation volume.
A balance curve plots volume against platform elevation so the level where cut and fill meet is read off rather than iterated towards.
Designs, contours and sections export to DXF; quantity tables to CSV or Excel; the graded surface to GeoTIFF. The survey team can then measure the as-built against exactly the surface you issued.
Each of these has its own page with the detail and the supported formats.
Bench height, berm width, batter angle and the daylight line on real ground.
Learn moreRamp alignment, vertical profile, typical section and station quantities.
Learn morePhase volumes against a reference surface or level.
Learn moreStation-based cubature with DXF section drawings.
Learn moreGradient colouring to check design angles against what is standing.
Learn moreContours over the graded design once it is applied to the terrain.
Learn moreWhere water runs and collects on the pit floor.
Learn moreDXF, CSV and GeoTIFF for the drawing set and the survey team.
Learn moreBecause the wall stands or fails as a whole. The overall angle runs from the toe of the lowest bench to the crest of the highest and includes the berms, so it is always flatter than the individual faces. Two designs with identical face angles can have very different overall angles if their berm widths differ.
Yes. The bench template works in both directions — an excavation with benched walls, or a dump whose capacity you want rather than its excavation quantity.
Apply the design to the working terrain and everything downstream reads the graded surface: contours show the benches, cross-sections cut through the design, and slope or hydrology analysis runs on the new ground.
You enter the limits — maximum grade, minimum radius, sight distance — and every edit is re-checked against them, with violations listed by station.
No. It covers the terrain and quantity side of planning: geometry, volumes, access and the checks on them. Resource estimation and production scheduling are separate disciplines with their own tools.
Free beta for Windows x64. Works fully offline with GeoTIFF, LAS/LAZ and DXF.
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