Plane Objects

Understanding the Plane Object

Planes

Planes are a specific file type that can be used to indicate a 2-dimensional 'sheet' within your data set. They can be generated manually or as a result of converting from another data type, e.g. strings.

Planes require both explicit position and orientation settings; in Datamine products, a plane is referenced to a single point in 3D space (XYZ) and a specific dip direction. Although a 2D object, the planar qualities are extrapolated from the XYZ position and directional information. Once created, planes can be used in other processes (e.g. Stereonet Charts or the active 3D window, say, as part of rock mass structure analysis). As such, a plane object is closely aligned to a points object, albeit with additional information.

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Planes are used to represent the faces of a map and are stored in the Georeferencing data object that appears in the Project Data control bar

 

Although resembling points data with respect to the data columns that are included, a planes object can be generated from other data types, such as a string, for example. In this situation, a plane is aligned with the data following a 'best fit' approach.

Each plane object contains the following fields:

Field

Numeric or Alphanumeric

Implicit or Explicit

Description

XP

N

E

X coordinate of the center of the plane.

YP

N

E

Y coordinate of the center of the plane.

ZP

N

E

Z coordinate of the center of the plane.

DIPDIRN

N

E

Dip direction of the plane.

SDIP

N

E

Dip of the section.

HSIZE

N

E

Horizontal size of the plane.

VSIZE

N

E

Vertical size of the plane.

VARIANCE

N

E

Where a plane has been generated from another process, this value describes a measure of how closely point data in the original object relates to the position of the plane (best fit analysis).

BLOCKID

N

E

A mining block identifier.

 

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Planes Properties Dialog
File Types