Project links mining players.

A northern mining research group is seeking partners in the mining industry to assist in a major communications initiative.

The initiative aims to network mining planners, geologists and investors together using virtual reality as a way to improve mining productivity and attract international investment.

"The competition is not between Sudbury and North Bay. The competition is between Ontario and Canada and the rest of the world," says Andrew Dasys, director for the Centre for Integrated Monitoring Technology (CIMTEC), a research group affiliated with the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research Organization (MIRARCO) and Laurentian University.

The Northern Advanced Visualization Network, or NAVNet, is a vision for the North that would see virtual reality laboratories set up at mining sites all across Ontario and potentially the rest of Canada.

"In about five years, every mining company can have this type of technology," he says.

The network would link mining players and allow them to study complicated mining data sets on projected images. The technology projects a stereographic three-dimensional image on a screen and uses stereo to create an atmosphere of limited distraction. Focusing on the data allows mining planners to completely focus on a particular challenge in a specific mine, Dasys says. He compares the use of the technology similar to that of taking a corporate retreat in a remote location. The aim, he says, is to avoid the noise and constant interruptions common at most office settings. Looking at data under distraction causes many planners to miss important information that could affect investment or exploration decisions. Virtual reality, he says, would change that.

"You see new things with old data, adding new levels of insight," he says.

The inspiration for the project comes from the wide success virtual reality experienced in the oil and gas industry in the 1990s. Teams from different fields were able to immerse themselves in exploration data and saved millions in more efficient use of data and transportation costs. One virtual reality facility set up in Calgary yielded savings of up to $10 million over an eight-month period, Dasys recalls.

The plan for linking mines and the industry together still has a long way to go, however. So far, only the Red Lake Mine owned by Toronto-based Goldcorp has bought into the technology. Dasys says CIMTEC is targeting junior mining companies with the technology. Like GoldCorp, some of the companies, he says, can avoid having to travel to Sudbury to look at their own data.

The research group aims to build a Northern Ontario linkage between Sudbury, Timmins, Red Lake, Kirkland Lake and Toronto.

www.mirarco.org/aboutcimtec.php

By JOSEPH QUESNEL 

Northern Ontario Business