MineSight in the Foreground

Clipping Solids with Polygons

The Clip Surfaces and Solids tool is the tool to use when you want to clip using polygon(s) as a cookie cutter through selected solids and surfaces. You can also use the Surface Intersect function to trim surfaces (not solids) but the advantage of the Clip Surfaces and Solids tool is that you can use a polygon to clip multiple solids in one operation. Polygon boundaries can be either 2-D or 3-D polylines because in the background theyre extruded to solids before any actual clipping starts. In order to use this tool, surface elements must be in selection mode for this Clip function to be available on the Surface menu. Example 1: In the first example, there are three solids that represent three different geologic rock units plus a fault zone. All are located within the project area (Fig. 1). The pink polygon(s) shown in the same figure will be used to clip these solids in cookie cutter fashion. In this case, these are 2-D polygons that exist on a plane well above the geologic solids, and one of the polygons represents a hole in the other. Next, from the Surface menu choose Clip Surfaces and Solids and the Clip dialog will be displayed by default on the General tab (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

To clip all of the solids in one operation, you can either select them directly from the viewer using the multi-object selection icon , or from the Data Manager by selecting all of the objects, then from the right-click menu, choose Select | All Elements.

Clip Surfaces and Solids dialog tab pages. On the General tab dialog page, click on the polyline button , and then select the polygons to use from the viewer. Multiple polygons can be selected, and a right-click ends the selection. Next select Remove outside to keep the portion of the solids inside the larger polygon, and select the option to Close solids against boundaries to create closed solids. Since the smaller polygon boundary shown in Fig. 1 occurs completely inside the outer polygon, it is effectively a hole in the larger polygon. Select the elements you want clipped followed by a right-click to end the selection, or toggle ON Entire selection to activate the Apply and Preview buttons. On the Options tab dialog page we have opted to save the results to a new, open edit object. Since the results will consist of several elements that we would like to style differently later, choose the option to Explode results into individual elements. Finally, since there is the possibility that the solids could slightly overlap (even by a tiny amount), it is best to use the option to Clip each element separately. Click on Preview to view the results from clipping or Apply to save the results (as shown in Fig. 3a and Fig. 3b). Since we had selected the option to Explode results, Fig. 3c shows the results after styling the individual elements by material.
Fig. 2 (continued on page 4)

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Fig. 3a Preview

Fig. 3b Apply

Fig. 3c shows the results. All of the clipped solids occur in one solid object and the individual elements have been styled by material.

You can clip the selected elements in place without having to send the results to a new or different edit object. Clipping and then keeping the results in the original object is useful if you want to trim many solids at once and preserve their attributes. Its more useful if you have many solids in many objects and you wish to keep them in place.
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Example 2: In the second example, there are two solids objects (shown in light and dark blue in Fig. 1) and we want to clip using the same pink, 2-D polygons from the first example. The dark blue solids are contained wholly within the light blue solid. These various solids objects represent different alteration zones within the deposit.

Fig. 5 Preview showing the selected solids and the polygons used to clip them against (like a cookie cutter).

Fig. 4 shows two solids objects; one of which consists of multiple elements (dark blue) and occurs within the outer solid (light blue).

To clip multiple solids against a boundary when some of the solids occur wholly inside other solids, select all of the objects via the right-click menu in the Data Manager (Select | All Elements). Then bring up the Clip Surfaces and Solids dialog and choose the polygon boundaries. As in Example 1, the results in this example will be saved to a separate object. However to reiterate, sometimes it is more desirable to clip the solids keeping the results in the original objects. In addition, be sure to toggle ON the option to Clip each element separately. Click on Preview to view the results from clipping (Fig. 5) or Apply to save the results to an open edit object (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6, shows the clipped results, in green, and the original solids prior to styling by material.

Provided that the option to Explode results was used, the individual elements in the final resulting object can then be styled by material as shown in Fig. 7 and cross section 5340N in Fig. 8.
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solid in an orientation normal to the edit grid. Start by orienting the edit grid close to parallel to the strike and dip of the solid you want to clip (Fig. 9).

Fig. 7 The resulting clipped solids occur in one object and are shown styled by material.

Fig. 9 viewed end-on, shows the solid to clip, the horizontal boundary polygon, and the oriented Edit Grid.

On the Options page of the Clip Surfaces and Solids dialog, choose the Orient boundary (polygon/ surface) by Edit Grid to allow the edit grid orientation to determine the clipping direction (Fig.10).

Fig. 10 Fig. 8 Cross section through the resulting clipped solids at 5340N. Notice the pink nodes where the polygon boundaries pierce the cross section.

Example 3: Using one of the original solids from Example 1, the clipping direction can also be controlled by the edit grid. In this example, the polygon to use for clipping is located on the horizontal plane but we want to clip the

Select the polygon boundary, click on Preview to view the result and Apply to save. Fig. 11a shows the result when the clipped solid, with boundary displayed, is viewed normal to the edit grid (in the clipping direction). Fig. 11b is a more oblique view, illustrating the hole left in the solid by removing the inside piece.
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(Clipping Solids with Polygons continued from page 7) Fig. 11a This illustrates the result as viewed normal to the edit grid. The polygon boundary itself is oriented horizontally, but the clip is done at an oblique angle (normal to the orientation of the edit grid).

Fig. 11b Oblique view of the results after removing the desired part of the original solid from inside the polygon boundary.

In conclusion, the Clip Surfaces and Solids function is a powerful and versatile tool, and is the tool to use when using polygons for clipping like a cookie cutter in MineSight 3-D. The Clip Surfaces and Solids function is available in the current version of MineSight which is available on the MINTEC, inc. ftp site.

September 2003