ImageAir can offer imagery services to the mining and extractive industries that can fulfil the data collection requirements for geographic, vegetation and thermal survey.

DTM survey requirements for the mining industry are varied but can include:

  • Stockpile Measurement – this could be either on site measurement at the mine or stockpile auditing at the port or place of export
  • Open Cut Measurement- a DTM can be created to map the state of current infrastructure and assist in the audit of current open cut mining situations
  • Future Planning – DTM’s can be captured to give rapid survey data to enable the future macro and micro planning of proposed ongoing mining activity

Depending on the requirements of the DTM it can be generated using Stereoscopic or LIDAR systems. The relevant requirements that will govern a certain approach would be:

  • Total area of required data
  • Data resolution (accuracy) required
  • Urgency of the required data
  • Proposed budget for the data collection mission
  • Type of terrain to be captured (undulating etc)
  • Is there a requirement for vegetation to be mapped, extracted out of the data etc.

The use of orthophotos is used in mining applications for a variety of reasons. These can include:

  • Historical record keeping
  • Planning requirements in the short and long term

The orthophotos can be supplied raw or in mosaciced, georectified and colour balanced or any combination of these attributes

NIR imagery is a useful tool in mining and extractive industries for the following reasons:

  • Baseline vegetation surveys before commencement of mining operations
  • Continual surveillance and auditing of rehabilitation activities. By using NIR in this area it is a method of attributing actual auditable data to rehabilitation work to map progress in this area particularly by using Plant Cell Density (PCD) imagery generated by repeated passes over a period of time
  • Surveying off site vegetation for historical record keeping especially if it is perceived that this data might be useful in justifying mining related activities and actions at a later date, particularly to government departments etc. This will greatly enhance the businesses ability to safe guard its environmental record and security, particularly in the downstream of the natural watercourse
  • Can be used to monitor vegetation for signs of impact associated with issues such as spontaneous combustion and salt egress from saline holding dams
  • NIR can also be used to gather vegetation data to enable planning for bushfire (wildfire) activity both on and off site. If combined with DSM/DTM data it can give a very accurate picture of adjacent vegetation densities to the areas of concern

TIR is predominately used in the mining industry to monitor for underground spontaneous combustion (sponcomb) in the coal mining industry. It can allow the initial identification or confirmation of sponcomb areas and then the ongoing monitoring of the situation and even confirmation of the positive, or otherwise, result of actions taken to bring the areas of sponcomb under control.

Contact Us to discuss your aerial imaging needs.