The 3D network connecting the intelligent mine

VoxelNET leverages off the internet network and overlays a software architecture to allow the sharing, visualisation and analyses of 3D data. To date, no system has been available to provide a centralised repository for uploading and sharing 3D data, across multiple devices, from camera’s, lidar, scanners and sensors.

Not only does VoxelNET provide a solution to this challenge, but it has deployed a smart system for indexing data to its actual location in the real world. Using the military grid system, the world is divided into voxels – a 3D version of a pixel – which facilitates a greater depth of information which can be captured from the data including density, colour size, temperature etc.

How it works

VoxelNET is linked to and supported by the internet. It is a simulated volume generated and made up of voxels, the 3D volume equivalents of the 2D pixels on a screen. The voxels are cubes, the size of which can be defined to fit the task at hand. In VoxelNET each voxel can be precisely located by means of an inbuilt addressing system, known as voxel protocol.

The voxels can hold information, such as density, ore grade or rock hardness. They can be programmed to store, integrate and cross-correlate data from many different sources, to act autonomously in finding and processing information, and to interact with each other in precise ways.

The voxels also come in several different varieties. Spatial Voxels, for instance, are linked directly to a precisely defined one-metre by one-metre grid of the Earth’s surface from five kilometres underground to 20 kilometres above ground. The matter within Material Voxels can be labelled and traced wherever it moves.

The voxels and the data they contain can be subject to different defined layers of security—broad access allowed for some information or levels of simulation, restricted access for more confidential information. And data can be spatially referenced or anonymised.

Benefits

VoxelNET can be used to generate a virtual mine and simulate its working, to store remote sensing information on the fly, or to track or control equipment or material remotely, all in 3D and able to accessed by many different devices simultaneously. The applications include: