New MinView

MinView enables users to interactively display and query historical and current exploration tenement and geoscience information via the Internet. It allows people to spatially select, display and download geological coverages, mineral deposits and mine locations, geophysical survey boundaries, drill hole locations as well as exploration title boundaries and other spatial datasets of New South Wales. MinView also provides the facility for users to apply and pay for exploration license online.

MinView Update

New version of MinView is now available! The department's web mapping service MinView has been substantially upgraded recently and the latest version has now been released. The service can now be reached from the new blue MinView icon either on the Minerals Division home page or on the Geological Survey page.

The user is now provided with a vastly improved user interface with new zoom and pan functionality. The enhanced zoom facility now incorporated into MinView is an innovative application of ESRI's ArcIMS® technology whereby the state is divided into virtual tiles and the data layers are rendered separately for each tile. Using this device, zooming to large scales like 1:5 000 can be achieved without the computational overheads which would be needed to render the entire state at that scale. In this way, even geophysical imagery can be rendered in a practical time assuming broadband internet connection speeds.

The enhanced MinView introduces a new interactive experience to registered users. MinView now provides both an Email Reminder service, which reminds the user of upcoming exploration licence expiry dates, and an Email Alert service which provides the user with an email message alert when changes to tenure occur in a user-specified location. A bookmark facility allows users to recall up to 100 favourite screen views. These "stored" services for each user are cached on DPI servers so that users can make use of their own stored "profile" from any remote site where they have web browser access to broadband internet.

Exploration Licence Application Online

Of particular value is the new online facility enabling lodgement and payment for mineral exploration licence applications. This new graphical interface in MinView provides users with an easy-to-use graphical selection tool to identify and then to lodge and pay for applications for minerals tenure. The graphical tool reconciles the application against competing land tenure such as other minerals tenements and conservation areas then passes the information to an online payment facility.

Substantial supporting information is required to be submitted as part of the exploration licence application. It is therefore strongly recommended applicants read the Guidelines for Lodging An Exploration Licence Online before lodging an application.

Major Improvements

The new version is a fully re-vamped application interface which includes these major improvements:

• Facility for online submission of applications for new mineral exploration licences, including an online payment facility.
• Totally new graphical user interface with greatly improved zoom and pan functionality - The original MinView's fixed zoom levels and static pan tools have been replaced with powerful zoom, window zoom and map window pan functionality which dramatically improves ease of use.
• Image rendering - Display of statewide geophysical and other images may now be displayed even at high zoom levels.
• Access online to the MetIndex mineral occurrence database
• Improved area selection tools for spatial queries and downloads
• Registered User facility enabling user-defined services
• Data layer legend customisable from a choice of more than 60 data layers - Users can create their own maps by customising their preferred map legends from a large choice of data layers using the Select Layer tool.
• Bookmark facility enabling easy return to customised views - Users can zoom to and save areas of interest with data layers customised to suit their needs. Registered users can save up to 100 bookmarks to facilitate continuity between sessions and their stored bookmarks are then available from any other computer or remote site where web browser access to broadband internet is available.
• Access to interactive Email Alert and Email Reminder features - Registered users can receive emails reminding them of an impending exploration licence expiry for one or more titles defined by the user. Registered users can also receive emails alerting them to a change in title attributes over user-defined areas of interest.

The revised MinView Entry Portal retains the choice of differently customised entry points for users requiring access to exploration information about Titles, Minerals, Coal and Petroleum. Other existing functionality like text searches, spatial queries, downloads and access to DIGS® have also been retained. Data queries on individual tenements or groups of tenements or on geographic regions link to the wealth of NSW open file exploration company and geoscience reports available on-line via the DIGS® system.

MinView Layers

MinView data layers now available for on-line display include:

• Current exploration titles, mining leases and exploration title applications (updated daily)
• Historic exploration titles
• Drillhole data including drill core library information
• Statewide geology and structures
• Metallic and industrial mineral deposits
• Geophysics survey index
• Gasfield locations
• Geographical data
• Geophysical imagery

Future Developments

Improvement of this service will not cease with the release of this new version of MinView. An increased focus will continue on both the quality and accessibility of the underlying data. Plans are underway to improve database structures and to make NSWDPI data more accessible via online services.

Online Help Assistance

• General MinView Enquiries
• Apply to be a Registered User (please refer to MinView Registered User Conditions below)
• Titles-related Enquiries

A User Manual and Help Guide is also available from the MinView Help links located on all MinView windows.

A program of industry workshops and face-to-face training will be arranged in due course. Please contact the MinView Administrator to lodge an expression of interest in training.

MinView Registered User Conditions

Your email address will be collected by the NSW Department of Primary Industries and recorded for the express purpose of activating the MinView email alert and email reminder services for you. This information will not be distributed to any other parties. The supply of your email address is voluntary however email alerts and reminder services cannot be effected without storage of this information on our databases. You may unsubscribe from these services at any time by sending an email to NSWDPI at minview.reguser@dpi.nsw.gov.au with "Unsubscribe" in the subject field of your email. You may also access or correct your recorded details by sending an email detailing your request to the same email address.