This is an excerpt from Exercise 7, Surfaces, of the course manual provided for the McElhanney course MapInfo Professional

and Encom Discover Mineral Exploration Module 2. Modify Grid Display

When a grid is first created it may not have a satisfactory appearance. The grid created in the previous exercise may be too dark, have strong shadows or might have the wrong colour scheme. In this exercise you will use the Modify Grid Display utility to change the appearance of the grid. Modify Sun-Shading 1. Click Surfaces > Modify Grid Display (or click the Sun-shade Grid button on the Surfaces toolbar). 2. Click the Sun tab and check the box for Auto Apply (Note that this may cause long delays when large data sets are used). 3. Modify the settings for Saturation, Intensity and Shadow. Observe the results in the map window. The sun angle can be modified by dragging the sun symbol to different locations. Once a suitable result is achieved, click the Close button at the bottom right. Modify Grid Colors 1. If the Modify Grid Display window is not open, click Surfaces > Modify Grid Display (or click the Alter grid colours button on the Surfaces toolbar). 2. The default setting is a linear stretch using Pseudocolour.lut (lut =
Step 4

Move this to interactively change the sun angle. Step 3

Accept defaults or click to change colours or values.

McElhanney Consulting Services 2012

look up table). Change this to geochemistry.clr. Note that there are two file extension for colour tables; *.clr and *.lut. Percentile breaks can only be created for the *.clr type. 3. Experiment with the different method options; you will need to click the Apply button after each change. 4. Select the Percentile Breaks option, and then choose Percentile Breaks (10) from the dropdown list under Options. Accept the default colours and percentile values, or click in the rows to change that values or colours. If you then select the option to Colour to Data Breaks, you will see the actual values that correspond to the percentile values.

Create a Grid Legend

There is no setup procedure for creating a grid legend, other than to Notice negative to match grid colours to values, as values. See below for explanation. was done when grid colours were modified. The appearance of the legend is determined by how colours are matched to values. 1. From the Surfaces menu click Make Legend for Grid. Alternatively, you can click the Grid Legend button on the Surfaces toolbar. If more than one grid files are open, you will be asked to specify the grid. Why are there Negative Values in the Grid? Depending on the input data values and the method you used to create a grid, you might end up with negative values in the grid. Negative values can occur for two reasons: There are actually negative values in the data. These values could indicate no data, lost samples, samples not taken, etc. These should be dealt with through data conditioning on the Input page of the gridding tool. As you did earlier in the exercise (on the Input page of the gridding tool), use the statistics explorer button to see if negative values exist in the sample data. If negative values exist, use data conditioning to specify values less than or equal to zero as invalid. Negative values can occur in a grid even if there are no negative values in the input data points, and even if data conditioning was used to exclude negative values. This is particularly prevalent when using the minimum curvature method, but it does not happen when using the triangulation method. Negative values are created when the gridding process projects a decreasing value trend into an area where there are no input samples points. For example, suppose that along a constant direction the gridding tool encounters values of 100 ppm; then 50 metres away, 60 ppm; then another 50 metres away, 10 ppm; then another 50 metres further away, no sample. Given the trend of rapidly decreasing values and the fact that the

McElhanney Consulting Services 2012

last value encountered was close to zero, the gridding tool will likely create a negative value in the area where no sample was encountered. False Anomalies Something important to note here is that false anomalies of high values can be created for the exact same reason that negative values can be created. Reversing the trend (looking in the opposite direction) in the example on the previous page could result in the creation of values much higher than 100 ppm in an area where possibly no samples exist. This is particularly common when using the minimum curvature method, though the effect can be reduced by increasing the boundary tension value and by using a buffer to limit the maximum distance from a sample that a value can be calculated. It does not happen when using the triangulation method.

Deriving Elevation Values from a Digital Elevation Model

If you have a DEM (digital elevation model), you can use the Surfaces menu to update point data, such as drillhole collars or sample locations, with elevation values derived from the DEM. This can be useful if elevation values are not known for those points or if the DEM has more accurate elevation values than those currently stored for those locations. For example, initial elevation values stored for drillholes may have been collected with a handheld GPS with 10 metre accuracy, but the DEM may have been generated using satellite imagery or LiDAR data might have 1.5 m and 0.2 m respectively. Values derived from the DEM can be used to replace those collected with the handheld GPS, or they can be added to an additional ELEV_DEM column. 1. If it is not already open, open the Soil_Samples.tab file from the Geochem folder. 2. Open a browser for the soil samples table. 3. From the BaseMap folder, open the file DEM_1.tab. The tab file will open a digital elevation model, saved in the Geosoft grid format. The DEM will need to be displayed in the same map window as the soil samples table. Step 8 4. In MapInfo, click Table > Maintenance > Table Structure. 5. Select the Soil_Samples table and then add an ELEV_DEM field (elevation derived from a DEM) to the table. The field should be Float type. A safe place to put the new column is at the end of existing columns. As drillhole projects and workspace files may make reference to columns by their order number, reordering those columns may lead to problems when opening workspaces or drillhole projects. 6. Select all points in the Soil Samples table the fastest way to do this is to right click the layer in the Enhanced Layer Control, and from the resulting menu, click Select All. 7. Click Surfaces > Assign Values from Grid. Note that you are not asked to choose a table at this step, as the assigning of

McElhanney Consulting Services 2012

values depends on having selected points. 8. In the Assign Grid Values window, select the ELEV_DEM column. 9. Click OK. The Soil_Samples Elevation column will now show the elevation values assigned from the DEM file. Using a DEM to Check for Elevation Survey Issues At this point you should be aware that coordinates for a location are ambiguous unless they are accompanied by projection and datum information. For example, given East-North or LatitudeLongitude coordinates for a drillhole, you wont know where that drillhole is unless you know whether the datum is NAD27 or NAD83. Did you know that similar issues arise with elevation data? There are two common earth models used when surveyors report elevation data, the Geoid model and the Ellipsoidal model. Problems arise when elevations measured in the two systems (common on projects involving multiple stages/generations/eras of exploration) are used on the same project, particularly when they are mixed in the same elevation column. Mixing elevation models can lead to offsets of up to 25 metres or more (a typical difference between the two models at the same point). Imagine the problems that would be created in mineral deposit resource calculation or drillhole planning if some of the drillholes had a 25 metre elevation offset compared to other drillholes. These problems can be found with the use of the Surfaces model and a sufficiently accurate DEM. The following method outlines how it is done for a hypothetical drillhole collar table. 1. The collar table must already have a column containing elevation values (ELEV_SURV, for example). 2. A new elevation column, called ELEV_DEM is added to the collar table. An Additional column called ELEV_DIFF (elevation difference) is also created. 3. A DEM with a known (and low) elevation error must be available for the drilling area. Preferable DEM files would have been created using LiDAR (~ 20 cm) , high resolution airphoto or satellite imagery (~ 1.5 to 2.5 metres). DEM files created from less accurate methods (Geophysical RADAR, or government DEM files, for example) may have too much error. SRTM (Space Shuttle) or ASTER DEM files are particularly unsuitable the error is just too high. 4. The Surfaces > Assign Values tool is used to update the ELEV_DEM column with values derived from the DEM. 5. Table > Update Column is used to update the ELEV_DIFF column with the difference between the surveyed elevation column and the ELEV_DEM column. The expression would be ELEV_DEM ELEV_SURV, for example. The order of the expression does not matter. The difference values will vary by several metres, according to the accuracy of the DEM, but what you are looking for is two distinct populations of differences this can be accomplished by creating a histogram of the difference values in Discovers GraphMap module. If geoid and ellipsoidal elevations have been mixed in the same elevation column, one population of differences will be within a few metres of zero and the other population is likely to be in the 15 30 metre range. Modern DEM files, such as those created with LiDAR, are often created using the geoid model (though you will need to check with the data provider). This implies that any elevations that are close to the DEM values created with the geoid model must also be geoid elevations. Elevations that differ greatly from the DEM values might have been surveyed using

McElhanney Consulting Services 2012

the ellipsoidal model, or they might be a result of poorly surveyed points or a data entry error. If there is a large variation in elevation differences but there are not two distinct populations, this might mean that you have a poor DEM, poorly surveyed points or both. If you have a DEM with high accuracy, such as one created with LiDAR, elevations derived from that DEM may be used to replace any suspect surveyed elevation values. For further discussion refer to the section at the back of this manual titled Using a DEM and Discovers GraphMap Module to Identify Elevation Survey Issues.

McElhanney Consulting Services 2012