Announcing the release of Micromine 2018

We are pleased to announce the release of Micromine 2018. 

Upgrading to Micromine 2018

Please note that activating your dongle for the first time in Micromine 2018 will also require you to reactivate your Micromine 2016.1 licence. Should you wish to keep using Micromine 2016.1, simply start it and follow the instructions. If you require assistance, please contact your local support office.

What you get

Here is an overview of what's new in Micromine 2018:

Highlights

• New licensing system with many new options: node locked licences, network licence pools, borrowing options, and traditional stand-alone (dongle) licences.
• Conversion to Unicode, supporting extended and multilingual character sets. Optionally use Unicode Text Format (UTF-8) for DATA and related files.
• Major enhancements to the Micromine DATA file format, with new create/modify options and support for date, time, date/time, and colour field types.
• Many user interface enhancements, including collapsible dialogs, Undo/Redo for forms, colour theme switcher, numerous auto-load additions.
• New resource estimation workflows with visual editing of search ellipsoid and block model extents, auto calculation of experimental variogram models, auto fitting of theoretical variogram models, and interactive range/sill measurement for determining search ellipsoid radii.
• New native CAD support in Vizex, with support for labels, polygon meshes and 3D mesh entities. New CAD cursor with several cursor styles and snapping modes and dedicated import/export options.
• New drillhole tools including auditing and exporting an entire database; validation errors are prefixed with severity level, databases are more forgiving of invalid data; new moving average Drillhole Graph style.
• Upgraded trend model for Implicit Modelling; lithology modelling with indicators instead of distance.
• Some block model management tools added to the Mining module, along with IDW interpolation; numerous wireframing and underground mining tools added to the Surveying module.
• New optimised shell option for pit design; many enhancements to ring design and blasthole design.
• New licensing system provides many more licensing options: node locked licences with no dongle, network licence pools with different seats per module; borrowing options, and traditional stand-alone (dongle) licences.
• Conversion to Unicode, supporting extended and multilingual character sets. Optionally use Unicode Text Format (UTF-8) for DATA and related files; ideal for formatting statistical reports etc.
• Modernised formatting in reports and properties windows, which now include extended characters e.g. m³, Al₂O₃ etc.
• New dialog-based File | New and File | Modify provide robust tools for creating and modifying file structures. Combines the capabilities of the old structure editor (replicate, increment, copy/paste) with new dialog options (undo/redo, sort, move up/down).
• Separate toolbar buttons and submenus for creating a file from a template, creating a new macro, and creating a new lookup table provide clear options for creating different Micromine files.
• New date, time, date/time, and colour field types in file definition. Can now store, display, and manage times and dates, and embed colours in Micromine data files.
• Automatic conversion of Excel’s 5-digit dates into normal dates on import, seamlessly converts Excel date/time data into readable values.
• New EPSG-based coordinate system converter, which supports the latest high-precision conversion methods, is much simpler to set up, and is far more versatile than the existing version.
• New Options | System | Shared Projects. Keep a local copy of default form sets, File Editor logs and temporary files, reducing the potential for conflicts in shared network projects.
• Added undo and redo to all dialogs. Can now modify a large dialog without worrying about returning to the previous configuration.
• New ability to collapse a dialog, providing access to Vizex without needing to close the dialog beforehand. Interact with Vizex without closing the current dialog (and losing the settings).
• New Vizex Colour theme definition that instantly switches between dark and light backgrounds without losing ability to see linework and other data.
• Vizex CAD/GIS is now just GIS, now with drag/drop support.
• Can now drag and drop any combination of MapInfo vectors and images into Vizex. Micromine will load TAB files as vectors or images as required.
• New Vizex CAD form for simplified display of CAD data, with improved support for labels, polygon meshes and 3D mesh entities.
• Separate options to Import and Export CAD files avoid limitations of the generic CAD/GIS import/export when dealing with CAD formats, including wireframe meshes.
• Import Vector (GIS/GPS) now optionally imports colour and line-width attributes if present in the original file.
• Import Vector (GIS/GPS) now includes user-selectable attributes, and allows attribute names to be mapped directly to standard fields.
• Inclusion of Centre for Exploration Targeting Perceptually Uniform Colour Maps in the palette list provides new colour palettes that are optimised for displaying spatial data.
• New Export Drillhole Database option exports an entire drillhole database to an Excel file with multiple tabs (per file), or as separate files in Excel or CSV format. Can now quickly package up an entire drillhole database to be distributed outside of MM.
• New Audit Drillhole Database option summarises the files and fields that comprise a drillhole database. Documents the contents of a drillhole database, lists files and fields, and file contents.
• Separate line type and line width options for hatch borders provide greater flexibility to apply styles to hatch borders.
• Hugely more configurable wireframe Draw Style options. Includes new Default Hatch and From Wireframe options, with control over hatch foreground, background, and fill for 2D slice and new 2D Silhouette. Advanced Hatch option provides even more flexibility.
• New String Reordering function to renumber joins and optionally sort strings by an attribute value, optimising the internal layout of a string file.
• When moving selected points, strings or string segments in Vizex, holding the X, Y, Z, U, V, or W key will now restrict movement along that axis, simplifying the process of moving objects in specific directions.
• Added two new string smoothing methods to Strings | Tools | Smooth, which are much more robust than the existing methods.

Frank Bilki

On behalf of the Micromine team