Sunday, January 19, 2014

Realistic Mining

Very often people say to me -- Miguel you should do a Minecraft, but focus on realism, make it hyper-real!

Well, I'm proud to present you guys our very first mine:


I guess realism can be disappointing. No spiders or terrors from the deep here.

But I'm messing with you. This is not for a game. We did this for people who do mining in real life. As it turns out voxels are good at this kind of problem.

16 comments:

  1. I'd love to hear about this in more detail? What was the "problem"? Is there structural and/or erosion simulation being used to find something out?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't comment on this if I am close... ;)

    But I believe, the mining company has vast quantities of data taken from ground cores and ultrasonic readings, so they know the composition of the ground very well. My guess by this picture is that they are using the composition data along with known structural properties of the various types of soil to generate an interactive ground map showing where it is safe to dig. This allows them to plan in advance the safest and most efficient route to continue digging.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rather, they have ultrasonic readings and ground core samples which have revealed to them the location of monster caves and portals to hellish dimensions, so they need a simulation to discover, if possible, how many miner/soldiers they will need to retrieve the nefarious ores.

    ReplyDelete
  4. interesting, do the different colours represent different variables in the composition (iron, dirt, or ores for example) of the mine, or are these just the assigned colours for your wireframe view? interesting stuff really - also, are voxels better 'suited' to this type of particular task, as opposed to other methods of rendering/world generation?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Miguel, if you love money too much, the gaming world may lose you - mining companies pay absurd (and I do mean absurd) amounts of money for software that most of the time doesn't even get used.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think this is part of the reason why he hired on some extra muscle.

      Delete
    2. And remember those materials going into making consoles and gaming rigs have to be mined as well.

      Delete
    3. Also don't forget, if Miguel + team gets payed sh*ttonnes of money, they can invest more into making this awesome =P.

      Delete
  6. Well, some people did buy Quarry Simulator 2013...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Looks like one of the open pits in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, is it ?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rad. I like when video game tech overlaps with real life industrial stuff

    ReplyDelete