Free Online 3D Block Model Viewer: Cutoff Grade Slider and Live Tonnage

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Cutoff grade: 0.50 g/t

Blocks above cutoff0
Tonnes0
Average grade g/t0
Contained metal, t0

Paste your own model as x,y,z,grade lines, or press the demo button for the built in deposit. Drag the view to rotate.

Three dimensional block model with a cutoff grade slider hiding low grade blocks
Slide the cutoff and watch marginal blocks fade out of the mineable inventory.

What a block model is

Almost every modern mine is planned on a block model: the deposit is divided into a grid of blocks, commonly ten meters on a side, and each block carries an estimated grade from drillhole data. Mine planners then ask a deceptively simple question of every block: at todays costs and prices, does this block pay for itself? The cutoff grade is that dividing line, and this viewer lets you feel it. Drag the slider and the deposit visibly shrinks to its profitable core, while the tonnage falls and the average grade climbs.

Using the viewer

The built in demo deposit is a dipping high grade shoot inside a broad low grade halo, 1,152 blocks in all. Drag the view to rotate it, or set it spinning. At a zero cutoff you hold the entire model: over three million tonnes at 0.48 grams per tonne. Push the cutoff to 1.0 and only 190 blocks survive, about 513 thousand tonnes at 1.81 grams per tonne. The metal content falls too, from 1.5 tonnes to 0.93: every cutoff decision trades metal for margin, which is exactly the story a grade tonnage curve tells in numbers.

Loading your own model

Paste plain lines of x,y,z,grade with coordinates in meters. Header lines are skipped automatically, blocks are centered in the view, and the tonnage arithmetic uses your block size and density. The viewer handles a few thousand blocks comfortably in the browser, enough for a pit stage or a teaching model. Everything stays on your machine: nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Honest limits

This is a visual and an inventory calculator, not a resource estimate. Real block models carry density per block, classification categories, and multiple grade fields, and real cutoff policy weighs mining cost, processing capacity, and time value rather than a single breakeven number. Use the viewer to understand and communicate a model, then leave the estimation itself to proper geostatistics.

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