The Benefits of Mapping Your Utilities: Deliverables and CAD Maps
Our team at Trinity Subsurface uses a variety of locating tools to mark out and flag utilities in the field. This is useful for direct work in the field if you’re going to be digging or excavating in an area. However, that’s only half of the job: the other half involves documenting the utilities on a plan that can be given to our clients for reference. What are the benefits of having all of your utility information on a plan? What are the differences between putting this information on a standard deliverable versus a CAD map?
First, let’s go into how we gather the data that can go onto an overhead image. This usually involves using ground penetrating radar, split boxes, electromagnetic locators and duct rods along with additional investigations into utilities at a site. We may take photos while on site to produce higher quality plans, showing things such as access points, limitations, markings and more. Once we’re finished with the investigation, we take that information and put it into a sketch while on site. This allows us to review the site if necessary for putting together a field sketch, usually using a client-provided scope of the site as a guide to overlay utility locations on an image. By providing this information over an existing map image, the field sketch deliverable keeps track of everything that has been located at the site to give the clients a full scope of what’s under their project.
However, there’s another form of mapping that provides a more accurate assessment of utilities, and that involves CAD mapping. CAD mapping provides exact surveyed points of underground utilities. Our team first investigates and marks out the location of utilities using standard utility designating methods. From here, we use a GPS device to accurately pinpoint where we’ve found utilities under the surface. If you need to get survey-grade utility information, this is where CAD mapping shines. With this data, we can take an existing CAD file and add maps of utilities in a DWG/DGN format. Having a CAD map can provide more control over what you see, as you can sort the color-coded utility lines by different layers within the file. For some projects, this is helpful to making a large map of an area, providing updates to a master plan with accurate survey points.
Our team has used CAD mapping to produce accurate large scale maps of areas with a variety of utilities. For example, our team performed a large college campus markout for the installation of fiber optic cables. Our team provided our client with a full CAD map of the entire campus, using GPS data points to map out the existing utilities for both the removal and installation of new lines.
If you need utility locating and mapping services, our team at Trinity Subsurface can provide you with the information you need to understand what’s underneath. We have a number of deliverables available for your needs, including GPS CAD mapping and Matterport scans. Visit our website to find out more information about the services we offer.
