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Free Excavation & Dump is the most basic mode of mining simulation in 3d-DigPlus. This was the original simulation mode in 3d-DigPlus and still remains a powerful tool when used appropriately.

When 3d-DigPlus is in Free mode the user can freely and independently create and execute excavations and dumps. When an Excavation is performed the excavated material reports to the assigned General Material Log. Any number of excavations can be performed sequentially in this manner and material will continue to accumulate in the  Material Logs Associated with the Excavation Templates used.

When a Dump is set up and and the user initiates the Start Dumping command, if material exists in the Contents of the General Material Log associated with the Dump Template, this material will commence dumping on the topography. Dumping will continue until either the material log contents are zero, a Dump Constraint is reached or the user terminates the dumping using the escape key.

When this approach is used, typically the user will excavate and dump in an ordered manner which approximately follows the proposed mining sequence. For example, the waste material for a particular strip may be scheduled for stripping with a truck and shovel fleet and  report to several dumps in sequence. In this situation an Excavation Template will be set up with appropriate constraints so as to excavate just the waste material for this operation. The initial Excavation Polygon will cover the first few blocks of the strip and this material will be excavated and report to the contents of the selected Material Log.  Dump Templates will be set up for all proposed Dumps. Initially the Dump Template for the highest priority dump will be used and the excavated material will be dumped using this Template. When the initial step is complete the user will move the Excavation Polygon to excavate material for the next few of blocks and so the process will repeat. When complete the user will have a record of the volumes, the dumps to which they report and a slideshow of the operation.

The basic techniques required to create the excavations and dumps to perform Free Excavation and Dump simulation are all described in the previous topics under Generic and Topographic Simulation. Specific examples are given in the Generic and Topographic Simulation Tutorials section.