Mining planning requires the knowledge of one or more of the deposit's attributes. This knowledge is obtained through attribute samples taken at certain locations. However, the sampling can be extremely costly which restricts the number of samples and locales where attribute values are known. Thus, the estimation of values, in unsampled locales, becomes necessary. The idea of value estimation in three-dimensional grids, using samples in Cartesian coordinates and geostatistical algorithms is the subject which has been approached. Nevertheless, commonly, this type of coordinates is not compatible to geostatistical application, since, this type of coordinates might damage the determination of the sample value's continuity and this continuity is the base of geostatistical algorithms. So, the question of Cartesian coordinate's transformation to coordinates that allow better sample-value continuity determination is approached in this paper. To demonstrate a coordinate's transformation, a real case of sonic wave slowness estimates is presented.
coordinates transformation; geostatistics; unfolding
