Using Geometric Computation for Characterizing and Visualizing Geological Structures

We present several image processing methods which extract additional geological information from 3 dimensional (3D) laser images of rock faces at the outcrop scale. The geological information we are interested in extracting is fracture orientation, surface roughness and specific rock feature detection. Fracture orientation is important in determining the strength of intact rock masses as well as the stresses it has received. The surface roughness is also important in determining the strength and stability of rock masses. The strength and stability of rock masses is especially important forsafe mining environments. The specific rock feature we aim to detect is known as the shatter cone. Detecting shatter cones was explored to determine if 3D images could be used to extract a specific rock type. Two different methods for fracture orientation mapping is presented. Three different roughness measures are proposed. One method for specific rock detection is explored.