Adding and Styling Drillholes and Planned Drillholes

The Drillholes folder contains all drillholes and planned drillholes that have been added to the section layout. To add drillholes to the section, right-click on the Drillholes object and select either Add Drillholes or Add Planned Drillholes.

Right-clicking the Drillholes folder offers Add Drillholes and Add Planned Drillholes.

When adding a drillhole or planned drillhole projection, you will be prompted for the interval tables to display; more than one can be selected. When available, filters can be selected to constrain the data in the selected table. Each selected table will be added as a separate item below the Drillholes folder.

The Add Drillholes Projections window, selecting interval tables and choosing a query filter to constrain the data.

Downhole points tables will also appear in the list when adding drillhole projections:

Downhole points tables appear alongside interval tables in the Add Drillholes Projections window.

When you click OK, the drillholes are added to the layout tree. They will be flagged with No Selection.

Newly added drillhole tables are flagged No Selection until drillholes are chosen for them.

If you add a single drillhole table, the Select Drillholewindow will automatically appear to prompt the selection of at least one drillhole. Otherwise, double-click on a drillhole object to open the Select Drillholewindow.

This window can also be opened by right-clicking on the drillholes object and selecting Projection settings.

Enabling the Filter by minimum distance to section plane value determines the limit for the projection of the drillholes onto the section based on the minimum distance from any point on the drillhole trace to the section plane.

Use the check boxes next to each drillhole in the list to determine which should be projected. The check box next to Hole ID will enable or disable all of the drillholes.

The Select Drillholes window, filtering holes by their minimum distance to the section plane.

If projecting a drillhole onto a curved long section, there will be an additional Panel column in the table. Because a long section can be bent such that a drillhole could be projected onto more than one section panel, this allows control over which section panel(s) the drillhole will be projected on.

For a curved long section, a Panel column shows which panel each drillhole is projected onto.

If projecting downhole points onto a section, the Select Points for Section window will include Hole ID and Depth columns for ease of identifying which points you want to enable or disable when managing point visibility selections:

For downhole points, the Select Points for Section window adds Hole ID and Depth columns to identify each point.

If projecting downhole points onto a curved long section, there will be Hole ID, Depth and Panel columns:

On a curved long section the same downhole point can fall in two panels, listed separately with its distance to each.

Like most tables, you can sort these projection settings table by clicking one of the column headers. You can cascade these table sorts; if you want to have the sort by Hole ID, then Depth, then Panel, work backwards. Click the Panel header, then the Depth header, then the Hole ID header:

The projection settings table sorted by Hole ID and then Depth by clicking the column headers.

For more on how drillholes, planned drillholes and downhole points are projected onto a long section in either Illustrative or Orthogonal modes, see Projection Algorithm.

The Clip geometry to filter distance option limits the projection of a drillhole to only the parts of drillholes that are within the specified distance.

With Clip geometry to filter distance ticked, only the part of a drillhole within the filter distance is projected.

With Clip geometry to filter distance unchecked, if part of a drillhole is within the minimum distance specified, the whole drillhole will be projected onto the section.

With Clip geometry to filter distance unticked, the whole of a qualifying drillhole is projected onto the section.

When a long section is updated, drillhole evaluations are updated. If there are multiple instances of a drillhole evaluation, how they appear on the section may change when the section is updated:

  • If all instances of a drillhole evaluation have been enabled, then all remain enabled when the section is updated.
  • If all instances of a drillhole evaluation have been disabled, then all will remain disabled when the section is updated.
  • If only some instances of a drillhole evaluation have been enabled, then all instances will be enabled when the section is updated.

Select an item under the Drillholes in the layout tree to see the properties to make the objects visible and to change their opacity and line width.

Planned drillholes added to a layout, with Visible, Opacity and trace line settings on the Lines tab.

Long sections using the orthogonal projection algorithm have an additional option to Show line discontinuities, which adds a dotted line to connect drillholes that appear “broken” across panel folds due to a curve or angle in a polyline being flattened onto a section.

Show line discontinuities adds a dotted line linking the parts of a drillhole broken across a panel fold on a long section.

If you select an object populated with drilling data, you will have additional options. Up to three columns of data can be displayed as stripes down the drillhole, and numeric data can even be displayed as a graph. Tick either the Left, Centre or Right positions for the boreholes to enable the visualisation and assign a Colouring according to an interval data selection.

Three data columns drawn as stripes down a drillhole, one from each of the Left, Centre and Right Colourings.

Next to each Colouring, the Options button opens a properties dialog for customisation for each set of interval data. The Line width can be set for each stripe down the drillhole.

For category data, the visibility of each category can be controlled and the colour fill for each category can be overridden by clicking Edit, clicking the colour tile and selecting a new colour using the colour picker. Hatching can be added to the colour or used instead of colour. Click Hatched then the hatching sample to select a hatch style. There are different categories of hatching, including designs intended for specific mineralisations. A search box is provided to make it easier to find specific hatch styles. Note that the Hatch colour, Hatch scale and Hatch line width can all be customised.

The Edit Colouring window for a category column, setting each code's colour and adding a hatch to the drillhole stripe.

For numeric data, a Value filter can be used to restrict the range of data shown in the drillhole stripe.

The Edit Colouring window for a numeric column, with a Value filter restricting the range of data drawn on the drillhole.

For numeric data, the Display style options are:

  • Solid for a fixed Line width stripe with downhole sample values being indicated by the Colourmap colouring:

The Solid display style draws numeric data as a fixed-width stripe coloured by the colourmap.

  • Bar graph which adds a variable width to create a bar graph running down the drillhole with downhole sample values being indicated by the Colourmap colouring:

The Bar graph display style draws each sample as a bar whose length reflects its value, with an axis at the top.

  • Line graph which changes the visualisation to a line indicating the sample data values:

The Line graph display style draws numeric data as a profile line running down the drillhole.

Both bar graph and line graph selections have the option to display an axis at the top or bottom to provide a value scale to the plot. The axis Limits can also be set to a min and max range. Note the parenthetic comment if a Logarithmic scale is enabled: when ticked, only positive values are displayed in the plot. The axis scale can have the Length of the Ticks adjusted. The Spacing can be adjusted when a Logarithmic scale is not being used.

The bar and line graph options are not available for the centre of the drillhole, although the solid option can be used.

Bar graph and Line graph extend out from the drillhole to a specified Max length. Select a Max length that means that displayed data does not interfere with other drillholes or data displayed on the section layout.

Increasing Max length widens the line graph, here so the profiles of three neighbouring drillholes nearly meet.

This is especially relevant when two graphs are displayed per drillhole.

The line graph option provides the ability to specify the Line width and Colour of the line. Click the colour tile and select a new colour using the colour picker.

Both category and numeric data Options windows also have a Labels tab. Labels can be shown or hidden using the Show graph labels tickbox and the Text style can be selected from one of the text styles provided and modified using the Edit styles button. The Offset specifies the distance from the drillhole the label will appear. Numeric data labels also add the option of making this offset a Constant distance or adding the Numeric value to the Offset to stagger the labelling according to the data values. The Rotation of the label can be specified so they appear at a tilted angle from the drillhole, and this angle can be specified to be with reference to the Horizontal if the labels should all be parallel, or Perpendicular to trace if the labels should follow the curve of the drillhole.

Numeric labels also have the option to specify the number of Decimal places in the labels. They also have a Show axis label section where the axis can be further adjusted. The Occurrence value controls how often labels will appear. Choose 1 for the label to appear on every tick, 2 for a label to appear on every second tick, and so on. Increasing Offset will move the axis labels away from the axis line, and Suffix can be used to add units alongside the axis label values. You can use the text style selector and the Edit Styles button to customize the axis label characters.

Category labels shown along a drillhole stripe, set perpendicular to the trace.

Labelling numeric data values works best for numeric datasets with sparse data sampling because when data samples are close together it can lead to cluttered and overlapping labelling, even when reducing the size of the font used for labelling.

Numeric value labels on closely sampled drillhole data crowd together and overlap along the trace.

Besides the labels associated with interval data described above, you can also have the following types of labels at different points along the drillhole trace:

  • Top labels
  • Intercept labels
  • Bottom labels
  • Depth markers

Additionally, the following points and markers can be customised:

  • Collar points
  • Intercept points
  • Depth markers

An intercept point is where the drillhole intersects the section plane.

Select either a drillhole object or planned drillhole from the Drillholes folder in the layer tree, then select the Points and labels tab.

The Points and labels tab, with collar points, intercept points, top, intercept and bottom labels and depth markers marked on the drillholes.

Click Options to change how the labels or points are displayed.

Collar points and intercept points can have the Shape, Size and colour modified. Click the Shape symbol to open a window with 60 different symbol options. Click the colour tile to open a colour picker window.

The Collar Point Style dialog, setting the shape, colour and size of the collar marker at the top of a drillhole.

Top, bottom and intercept labels can have the Text style selected from the available styles, or you can click Edit Styles to customise the style. Offset (x, y) positions the label a specified distance away from the point it is referencing. Rotation will put an angle on the label, useful when labels are close together. Top and bottom labels have the option to Show minimum distances for the drillhole from the section plane. You can also choose to Show units and specify the number of Decimal places to show. When enabled, Show sign will add a + in front of the minimum distance if the drillhole is behind the section, and a - in front of the minimum distance if the drillhole is in front of the section. Drillholes that pass through a section will have a minimum distance of 0 and no sign will be shown.

Labels on sections can be selected and dragged into a new position to avoid overlapping with adjacent items on the section. Click the Reset Dragged Labels button to restore them to the default position.

Labels can have a line connecting them to the point they refer to, if Draw label lines is ticked and once the label is more than the At offset length away from the point. The Line style, Line width, Pattern scale and colour can be customised. A Preview shows what the line will look like on the section.

The Top Label Options dialog, setting the rotation, minimum distance text and label lines for drillhole top labels.

Depth markers display ticks down the length of drillholes with optional distance labels. On the Ticks tab, the tick Spacing can be specified, and you can choose to optionally Display tick at base ofdrillhole. The Orientation of the tick can be Horizontal to display all the ticks in parallel, or Perpendicular to trace to have the tick orientation follow the curve of the drillholes. The Side of the drillhole centreline the tick extends from can be specified as Left or Right. The Line length specifies how far from the drillhole centreline the tick extends, and the Line width determines how thick the tick is.

The Ticks tab of Depth Marker Options, setting the spacing, orientation and side of the depth ticks on a drillhole.

On the depth marker Labels tab, the labels can be enabled using the Show labels tickbox and customised in the same way as other labels using the Text style selector and the Edit Styles button. Offset (x, y) positions the label a specified distance away from the tick it is referencing. Rotation will put an angle on the label. You can also choose to Show units and specify the number of Decimal places to show. Labels can have a line connecting them to the point they refer to, if Draw label lines is ticked. The Line style, Line width, Pattern scale and colour can be customised. A Preview shows what the line will look like on the section. Depth marker labels can be selected and dragged into a new position to avoid overlapping with adjacent items on the section. Click the Reset Dragged Labels button to restore them to the default position.

The Labels tab of Depth Marker Options, setting the text style, offset and label lines for the depth labels.