Large-scale mine visualization using VRML

Traditionally, mine plans and sections in 2D stored 3D information. We show that using VRML to model this information leads to new, interactive methods of data visualization. With the demise of the last working tin mine in Cornwall (South Crofty), perhaps the end has arrived for a way of life that saw the rise of Cornish miners and the engineering know-how they brought to the world. Using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is the latest in a series of attempts to view the complex arrangement of tunnels and stopes at South Crofty. VRML has many advantages, especially in rendering speed, ease of creating geometry, and the added bonus of Internet capability. This permits viewing interactive mine models by almost any interested party at almost any location if they have an Internet connection and can access a location where the model is stored. To construct a 3D model, we must first obtain coordinate information. In the case of South Crofty, this information came from three sources: electronic digital data, paper plans and miscellaneous plans and reports. Because the South Crofty survey department used a commercial mine survey package called Surpac, we used that format ourselves. Once all the information was in Surpac format, relatively painless editing could take place within Surpac using a graphical editor. Next, we used a conversion utility written in Java to convert the coordinate data into a suitable VRML format