Gold in them thar hills

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist

Many moons ago, while working as an in-house graphic designer for a mining company in Vancouver, I was paid to make exploratory drilling results look compelling to investors. Not an easy task, to be sure. The drilling process involves taking samples from deep, deep, underground, analyzing their precious metal content, and having geologists figure out if the area is worth turning into a mine. The more drilling you do, the better your information gets as you build a 3D model of the results.

Wits Basin Precious Minerals, a mining company based in Minneapolis, built this SketchUp model of their results from an area in Colorado. The file is kind of big (almost 24 MB), but it's awfully innovative -- I never produced anything half this interesting. If you're really into mining, check out the full Bates-Hunter Project press release.