maptekomf.maptek

Provides support for inter-operability with the Open Mining Format (OMF) and Maptek applications which share an underlying infrastructure. This includes BlastLogic, PointStudio and Vulcan GeologyCore.

The sister package maptekomf.vulcan provides support for inter-operability with the Open Mining Format (OMF) and Maptek Vulcan which does not share the same underlying infrastructure of Maptek's other applications.

Usage

This package can be installed as a Python package and used to develop in-house tooling for working with Open Mining Format (OMF) and Maptek applications.

Alternatively, it can be provided alongside workflows to enable the Maptek Workbench to provide custom import/export functionality for OMF.

Set-up workflows

Method 1

1. Install the maptekomf package
2. Copy/download the workflows to a suitable folder
3. Run the workflows.

Method 2

1. Download the maptekomf_with_workflows.zip archive.
2. Extract the archive
3. Run the workflows from the extracted location.

Follow-up

If you are wishing to export from an application other than PointStudio, you will need to edit the workflow to use the Get Active Selection component from the other application.

Within a script

Import a file to project

The following script will import a file called test_file.omf into the Maptek project at the path /scrapbook/omf/test_file.

from mapteksdk.project import Project

from maptekomf.maptek.importer import omf_to_project

if __name__ == '__main__':
    with Project() as project:
        omf_to_project('test_file.omf' project, '/scrapbook/omf/test_file',
                       overwrite=False)

Export selection to OMF

The following script will export selected objects into a file called exported.omf. It will however not skip over any unsupported objects.

from mapteksdk.project import Project

from maptekomf.maptek.importer import omf_to_project

if __name__ == '__main__':
    with Project() as project:
        omf_to_project(project, project.get_selected(), 'exported.omf')

Supported application versions

• Maptek PointStudio 2021 to 2023.
• Maptek Vulcan GeologyCore 2021 to 2023.2.

The recommended version of mapteksdk to use this with is 1.6. Version 1.4 and 1.5 of the mapteksdk are supported, but it recommended to upgrade where you can, and to use newer applications you will often need to use the newer SDK.

Implementation defined behaviour

This OMF importer/exporter implementation has the following behaviour that may be different to how other implementations, scripts and applications handle a given OMF project file. This is done in places where the OMF specification does not specify how such cases should be handled, especially in cases where data can't be represented natively in the data format.

Naming

The name of objects in an OMF project are not required to be unique. The names of objects in a given container in a Maptek project must be unique.

As a result, during import if a duplicate name is detected a numerical suffix, will be added. When adding this suffix, if there is an object in the OMF project with that name, it will be skipped even if that element/object won't be imported. For example, if an OMF file contained three objects, two called "point_set" and a third called "point_set 2" then the first will be named "point_set", the second will be named "point set 3" so that it does not clash with "point_set 2" and the last will be called "point_set 2". The name "point_set 1" will not be used when selecting a unique name; "point_set" is considered the first object.

Point colouring

Maptek applications built on a shared underlying infrastructure have the concept of per-point colour.

If the colours are not all the same when exporting, then they will be written as an attribute of type omf.ColorData on the object called "point colours".

When importing, the "point colours" attribute will be recognised and read in as a colour array. Maptek applications only support one set of colours per primitive (primitive being point, edge, cell or facet). Multiple colour array attributes are not supported.

Cell visibility

The Maptek object type GridSurface has the concept of point visibility, which is a way to hide cells that are not relevant. For example, they may fall outside the data range (i.e. the area that was measured/recorded). This is achieved by saving it as an attribute for vertices called "visibility" in OMF and recognising the attribute in the importer.

Limitations

• Maptek objects of type Polyline and Polygon will be re-imported as EdgeNetwork. There is potential here to improve this situation.
• Objects cannot have primitive attributes of type "date time" in Maptek applications. Importing an OMF element with date time attributes is not supported.
• The Maptek object type GridSurface does not support textures. This means textures for gridded surfaces in an OMF file won't be imported.
• The Maptek object type GridSurface does not support cell colouring.
• Exporting a GridSurface object from a Maptek project may not work, as the GridSurface object is more general than the gridded surface object in OMF.
• Exporting a textured Surface from a Maptek project to OMF may not work, as texturing in Maptek applications is more sophisticated than what OMF supports.
• Only one colour map (legend) will be imported per object. Maptek applications only allow a single colour map to be assigned to an object.
• Importing colour maps on edge, cell and facet attributes is not supported in the 2021 versions of Maptek applications. If there are strings in the legend, then the strings will still be imported as an edge, cell or facet attribute.
• Only specific cases of omf.MappedData will be imported; at this time, this means string and colour. Only data that was found in the sample data file provided by the OMF GitHub project is handled, as the full scope of what is possible appears to be unbounded.
• Primitive visibility is not preserved in the export. This means certain types of filtering in Maptek applications will be lost on export.
• Container hierarchy will not be preserved, as OMF has no concept of containers or folders within its file format. This may be subject to change depending on what other OMF applications handle (for example using backslashes in the names of objects to define a hierarchy).

Future work

• Import and export for block models. Support may be added on request; however the plan is to wait until this package is updated to use omf-2.0.
• Upgrade omf package from 1.0 to 2.0.
• Add handling for identifying Polyline and Polygon, so they aren't imported as EdgeNetwork.

Distribution

This project is typically distributed as a Python wheel through PyPi. However, other mechanisms exist.