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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B4. Istanbul 2004 
  
what the mean square error and deviation are. On the other 
hand, people educated in the field of open pit mining have an 
advantage in the interpretation of objects on photos and can 
consider the importance of objects in the specific job much 
better than the closely focused photogrammetrist. The third 
aspect refers to people who know and are well trained in 
different software tools, are flexible to respond to appearing 
situations and are able to solve problems. 
Another important issue is a good estimation of the time 
schedule during the project management. Otherwise, time 
pressure and stress cause other problems. 
2.5 Tasks 
There are different requirements from the open pit mining 
company concerning the data and deliverables. Some of the 
companies are working with an own information system into 
which the data delivered have to be integrated. Therefore they 
have special requirements for the format of vector and raster 
data. In other cases, the company uses only hardcopy plans with 
vector drawing and an orthophoto in background. They are 
more focused on the figures from volume calculation and 
the hardcopy is only a guideline for their decision making 
in a development of the mining activity. 
2.51 Updating the situation 
As mentioned above, the open pit mining company either has or 
has not information about the first or original status quo of their 
quarry in some form. This may be available in paper-, but not 
digital-form. However, bigger companies do plan their activities 
in digital form already. Then vector data are delivered in some 
specified format. The task is to update the data according to the 
new situation on taken photos. Sometimes legends or object 
catalogues are so complex that it is very difficult to be well 
oriented. in it. In some cases, the catalogue is created to the 
«rictire of the project during the project preparation and can 
be changed also later on. Various lines identify for example 
crest and toe of the slope in active mining, dump, overburden, 
or nature surlace, the water level of ponds, access roads for 
machines, railways, tunnels, pipelines, open pit mining plants, 
other buildings, belt conveyors, crushers, fences, forest, 
cadastral borders and so on. 
Mining companies have different needs what to digitise and 
what is not so important for them. The size of the smallest detail 
to be digitised is different from quarry to quarry, from 
purpose to purpose, from object kind to object kind. Sometimes 
it is sufficient to digitise slopes which are higher than 1.5 m, 
sometimes also smaller ones. Sometimes dumps are important 
and sometimes not etc. 
Vector data with points, lines and areas in digital form or as 
hardcopy are a result from stereoprocessing aerial photos. 
25.2 DTM and Volume Calculations 
In many cases also volume calculations are required. Therefore 
updated data from aerial photos are used for digital terrain 
modelling. 
Volumes can be calculated as a difference between old and new 
model or new model and a defined plane. The result contains 
information of cut and fill volume and also cut and fill area. 
The delivered form can be a digital terrain model, a string file, 
a file with 3D triangles, 3D DXF, or just a text file with point 
co-ordinates and information about edges. 
709 
  
Figure 2. DTM represented by hypsometry 
2.5.3 Information systems of mining companies 
Nowadays, many companies recognised the advantages of 
information systems for the monitoring and planning of their 
mining activity. However, the market of information systems is 
very wide and still not well standardised. Special systems 
tailored to the companies’ needs can bring problems during 
a data integration. 
Updated vector data from aerial photos, DTM and orthophotos 
in mosaics can be used in the information system for analyses 
of the open pit mining development, animations, simulations 
and archiving. 
2.5.4 Planning 
In the case of planning the mining activities, digital terrain 
models are crucial. 3D modelling can show real views of 
the quarry or mine, how it looks from different places, what the 
influence of mining to the nature and mine surrounding is. Also 
3D flight over planned situation and other various visualisations 
can be done. 
  
Figure 3. 3D view at the open pit 
3. WORKFLOW 
After the project preparation mentioned above including the 
discussion about formats, accuracy, and necessities of 
deliverables, flight planning and taking the photos, the work 
itself starts with the checking of the received data, especially