Datamine Discover KB - Display Downhole Data

Are drillhole HoleIDs case sensistive?

kbadmin — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 03:46:28 GMT

Yes Discover Drillhole tools was compare HoleID primary keys with case sensitive.

There is a validation option to check for Collar name mismatch, this will return any HoleID values which are not found in the Collar table, including case differences only.

It is recommonded to convert all HoleID field values to upper case to avoid issues.

How do I refresh my drillhole data and regenerate a section?

kbadmin — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 23:30:01 GMT

Occurrence

Existing drillhole cross-sections and plans may need to be updated after updates and additions to a drillhole projects collar, survey and/or downhole data tables. Examples of changes to these files that may warrant section regeneration include:

- new drillholes are added to a project (including splay/daughter holes)

- new downhole data intervals (from/to) added, such as hole extensions

- new columns are added to the table for new assay elements

Solution

1/. Ensure the drillhole project's source MapInfo Pro tables have been updated with the new information, whether these need to be refreshed via a database link, appended to or replaced linked files.

If the source tables are linked tables, such as Excel, CSV or Access database, if there are no changes to the columns and table structure, simply overwrite the file with the new file (keep the name the same). For the collar table, you will also need to update the point locations using Discover>Update Coordinates

NOTE DO NOT refresh linked tables by going back to the Open table and overwriting the existing tab file. The ...

How do I display a 3D vector file from another application into a Drillhole Section?

kbadmin — Thu, 21 May 2020 23:37:55 GMT

Solution

You can do this, by selecting all sections you wish to display it on in the section manager (select multiple by CTRL>Left Click).

Then go to the Section Manager>Analytical Tools>Display 3D Model on Section

This allows the easy display of multiple .DXF and Discover 3D .FDB vector models onto the selected cross-sections as attributed polygons and polylines, each in their own TAB file layer. These input models can be polyhedron volumes (e.g. mineralisation isosurface halos or proposed open cut wireframes) or surfaces (such as fault planes or unconformity wireframes/TINS) modelled in either Discover 3D or a 3rd party application.

The tool will display the intesection of the vectors with with 2D section plane.

NOTE It will not project or include all data in the envelope, it will only show data that intersects the section plane. If you wish to see all data within a section envelope, you can do this dynamically with the Discover3D Cursor Plane.

For instance, this functionality allows you to take your 3D models, such as :

And slice / intersect them across multiple 2D sections, with an assigned style per model, producing polygons and polylines stored and managed on a per section basis:

The Create Pierce Point Layer tool is found within the Section Manager -

This converts downhole intervals into attributed MapInfo Professional Point symbols. This significantly enhances the display and analytical options for this data on long- and cross-sections, such as:

A range of label positions for composited intervals, such as created with the Downhole Object Clip tool. Pierce points can be created at the top, mid-point, or bottom of an interval; the shallowest of deepest RL; or the location closest to or furthest from the viewer.

Use of MapInfo Pro symbols to highlight and reinforce particular intercepts (for instance, locations where boreholes have intercepted an aquifer/watertable)

Thematic mapping or geochemical data classification of pierce points (derived from clipped to 3D volume and/or composited intervals) allows for the powerful and effective display of high grade (or grams per meter) intercept values.

Surface gridding / interpolation of pierce points values (such as grade or gram/meter values) extends the advanced analysis and trend interpretation options, including resource calculations.

Some examples of the various pierce point outputs, and the display and analysis options they provide:

(1) Using a source file of downhole assays clipped to an orebody volume and then Composited by Cut-Off Grade, resulting in discrete high-grade intercepts.

Occurrence

Are you trying create and effectively display high-grade intercepts on your cross-sections and long-sections? Here are some pro-tips.

Solution

1/. Ensure you have composited your downhole assay table with the appropriate method / parameters (using Drillholes>Downhole Compositing). For instance, you may have composited the Au field with By Cut-Off Grade, using a cut-off value of 0.5g/t, and a minimum length of 5m. Also ensure that the resulting composited table is automatically added to the drillhole project by enabling the following option (the project will be re-cached during this process).

The resulting composited table may look similar in structure to this:

2/. If the cross/long-section already exists, you will need to first Regenerate the section to incorporate this new downhole data table, using the option in the Section Manager:

Solution

A couple of tips that may assist you with the current version of Discover (v2013).

1/. To highlight 'Planned' holes.

In addition to adding the planned hole/s' collar (and survey entries if needed) information, add a single lithology entry for each planned hole to the lithology table, spanning it's entire depth (e.g. From 0 To 300). Assign an attribute such a 'Planned' to the appropriate lithology field. We'll be leveraging this via a lithology trace shade. When the updates are done, Save the changes, and 'Recache the Drillhole Project'.

In the projects 'lithology' legend (in the Legend Editor), add a new row, called 'Planned' and set a colour/pattern that stands out for planned holes (my example below is orange vertical stripes).

Then apply this to one or more sections. Example output as below:

2/. To separate drillholes by type

a. Add a 'Type' character field to your project's collar table, and attribute as necessary (such as 'RAB', 'RC' and 'Planned'). Save, and Recache the project.

b. Create 3 queries (I used Discover's Data Utilites>Select by Group) from this collar tab ...

Downhole data is not displaying correctly or does not appear in drillhole cross-section or plan views.

Josh Knight — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:08:35 GMT

Solution

Check the following common issues:

Have you validated your Drillhole Project when opening it? If you have cancelled out of this process, Simple data problems like duplicate samples, interval mismatching and overlaps, and hole name discrepancies will effect downhole data display.
Is the downhole data table assigned in both the Drillholes > Project Setup dialog as well as the Plan > Downhole Data dialog?

In versions earlier than Discover 2017, you could not map individual settings for each downhole data table so the additional restrictions were -

Do the downhole data tables (e.g. assays, lithology, structure) all have the following 3 columns with identical names; Hole_ID, Depth_From and Depth_To (or similar).
These fields must be in the same position and order in every table (easiest if they are the first 3 fields). They must also have the same structure between tables (eg the Hole_ID fields must all be the ‘character’ type and the depth fields the ‘float’ type; check using Table > Maintenance > Table Structure).

How do I display downhole point data such as geophysical or structural data with only a single Depth field?

Josh Knight — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:00:08 GMT

Occurrence

Often down-hole data is collected as point data located with a single depth field. Examples include structural measurements such as foliation and bedding observations, geophysical readings (e.g. magnetic susceptability), or water table depth.

Solution

This is resolved in new feature in Discover 2017 or later.

In older versions -

Discover's Drillhole module requires all downhole data tables to have both individual From and To depth columns. In order the handle point data correctly, simply duplicate the single Depth field into two identical data columns, both populated with the same values.

To accomplish this easily:

1/. Use Table>Maintenance>Table Structure to rename the Depth field to, for example, 'From'. Then also create a new float field called 'To'

2/. Use the Table>Update Column tool to populate the new 'To' field with the contents of the 'From' field.