Volume Visualization Techniques as Applied in the Modeling of Ore Bodies

The visualization and analysis of spatial variability of mineral structures has been of interest to mineral scientists and mining engineers for quite some time. Information on mineral properties is usually available from a limited number of point measurements and spatial estimates are prepared in two dimensions by interpolation or other techniques. However, ore bodies are essentially 3D objects with varying properties in all spatial dimensions. This study focuses on the capabilities of volume visualization techniques providing new 3D modeling algorithms to manipulate, analyze and construct 3D mineral ore bodies. Our approach for 3D volume visualization of complex mineral structures with OpenGL is discussed. A visualization system developed by the authors is presented for importing, filtering and visualizing of the mineral data sets. Culling, lighting, shading and antialiasing were introduced to enhance the 3D effects of the complex mineral structures. Real data derived from an iron mine in Wuhan City of China demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of the system and the algorithms.