Creating a Section Plot

Section maps provide cross sectional views of drillhole traces, coordinates, reference grids, assay values and geological units. Section maps represent an important tool that enables you to display drillhole traces to help establish subsurface drilling coverage and visualize the geology and related geochemistry beneath the surface.

Before you can start creating your section maps you first must select the drillholes you want to view in your section.

The drillhole section plot options are provided in easy-to-use tab menus, enabling quick access to all the settings from a single dialog. The dialog include sensible defaults; enabling easy creation of drillhole sections.

You can replot your Section map using the Replot Holes on Existing Plan or Section option, from the DH-Plot menu. This option enables you to regenerate your current Section (or Plan) maps by simply replotting the holes without eliminating any added groups, such as interpretations, images, or grids.

To Create a Section Plot:

On the DH-Plot menu, click Section.
The Section Parameters dialog will appear.
To specify the section location parameters, select the Section Location tab. Select the Location and Orientation, Section Azimuth, Vertical Extent and Multiple Sections parameters, or accept the default values. Note that if you select multiple sections each section will be displayed in individual maps. To plot multiple sections on a single map, see the Create a Stacked Section Plot option.
You can edit the location coordinates either by specifying the values in the Easting Ref or Northing Ref boxes or by clicking the Define button to interactively select the location coordinates from the plan map.
To plot a topography profile across the section, select the Topography tab and select the Plot topography on section box to enable the topography parameters. Using the browse button, locate and select the topography grid file to use to calculate the topographic profile across the section. To edit the line style, click on the Line Style box beside the grid file name.
To plot data along the hole traces in the section, select the Data tab.

The Plot check boxes enable/disable the Data selection dropdown lists. This is a convenient way to select or de-select individual data plots without clearing or re-selecting the data from the Data lists.

Select the data channel(s) available in the drillhole project from the Data dropdown list. The selections combine the name of the channel, along with the identifier for the component database in which the channel is found.

Using the Plot Type drop-down lists, select the plotting type for the data previously selected.

Select the plot type(s) from the dropdown list. The Plot Types displayed are based on the selected Data type:
- Numeric channel selections include: "Bar plot", "Grid: Kriging", "Grid: Min curvature", "Grid: TIN-based", "Numeric bands", "Post grade/thickness", "Post values", "Profile", "Structural ticks".
- String or text channel selections include: "Comments", "Post text", "Rock patterns", and "Text bands".

To specify the plan map window parameters, select the Plan View tab and select the Plot plan view box. To enable the plotting of a grid in the plan view window, select the Plot grid or image in plan view box. Using the Browse button, locate and select the grid file to display.
To specify the profile window parameters, select the Profiles tab. To enable the plotting of a profile window, select the Plot grid data profiles box. Using the Browse button, locate and select the grid file to be used to calculate the profile across the section.

The rectangle box to the right of the Browse button displays the selected Line Style. To edit the line style, click in the box. The Line Attributes tool will appear.

To specify the page layout of the section plot, select the Page Layout tab. To specify the section map layout, click the Map Layout button. The Section Map Layout dialog is displayed. This dialog enables you to specify the layout of your section map. To accept the layout and return to the Page Layout tab, click the OK button.
To enable the title parameters check the Plot Titles box and add your titles content as required.
Click the OK button on the Section Parameters dialog. The section map is created and displayed.

There are many additional section-plotting options that enable you to include other parameters. As you become more familiar with the system, we recommend that you experiment with the other options to create a custom map of your own.