Abstract:

Cubic model is one of methods for predicting blind orebodies. It is called block model in 3D computer graphics. Block model is one of the most important expressions and calculation model for geological body and it is suitable for expressing non-uniform distributed data. Block model is widely applied in 3D geophysical inversion, exploration and mineral assessment, etc. Currently, the general method of block modeling of complex geological body is to convert the surface model of a geological body to its block model. However, there are two key problems during the general process. One is numerical intersections calculation between triangles and voxels (cuboids)（≥10⁶）. The other is search of internal cuboids in complex geological body. In order to deal with the problems, the authors proposed a rapid block-modeling algorithm from complex geological body by applying uniform plane subdivision and flood-fill algorithms, whose time complexity is O(n). It is creative for applying two-dimension algorithm idea to successfully construct 3D block model. Besides, the algorithm is suitable for constructing block model from arbitrary surface in 3D except for self-intersection surfaces. At the end of the paper, the time complexity analysis and experiment are carried out and the result shows that the method is efficiency and general.

Key words: mineral assessement, complex ore-body model, block model, flood-fill, uniform grid segmentation, mineral exploration