Development of Digital Techniques for Open Pit Mapping, Coolgardie, Western Australia

Photogrammetry has revolutionised in the last decade, with the advent of computer vision techniques such as Structure from Motion (Westoby et al., 2012).These techniques now allow us to capture outcrops, in 3D, at high resolution simply with a digital camera and inexpensive software (e.g. AGISOFT PHOTOSCAN PRO).The objective of this study was to test the variables that make high quality photogrammetric models and develop a workflow for reliable geological mapping of legacy open pits, for the exploration geologist and mine geologist. The case study site is Lindsays Pit, Coolgardie, Western Australia.