WO2010039243A2 - Procédés et appareil permettant d'analyser des opérations de marquage et de repérage par rapport à des cartes d'installation - Google Patents

Procédés et appareil permettant d'analyser des opérations de marquage et de repérage par rapport à des cartes d'installation Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2010039243A2
WO2010039243A2 PCT/US2009/005416 US2009005416W WO2010039243A2 WO 2010039243 A2 WO2010039243 A2 WO 2010039243A2 US 2009005416 W US2009005416 W US 2009005416W WO 2010039243 A2 WO2010039243 A2 WO 2010039243A2
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WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
locate
information
marking
facilities
facility
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PCT/US2009/005416
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English (en)
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WO2010039243A3 (fr
Inventor
Steven E. Nielsen
Curtis Chambers
Jeffrey Farr
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Certusview Technologies, Llc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
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Publication date
Priority claimed from US12/493,109 external-priority patent/US20090327024A1/en
Priority claimed from US12/539,497 external-priority patent/US8280631B2/en
Priority claimed from US12/568,087 external-priority patent/US8965700B2/en
Priority claimed from US12/569,192 external-priority patent/US8620587B2/en
Application filed by Certusview Technologies, Llc filed Critical Certusview Technologies, Llc
Priority to CA2739090A priority Critical patent/CA2739090C/fr
Priority to AU2009300323A priority patent/AU2009300323B2/en
Publication of WO2010039243A2 publication Critical patent/WO2010039243A2/fr
Publication of WO2010039243A3 publication Critical patent/WO2010039243A3/fr

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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G09—EDUCATION; CRYPTOGRAPHY; DISPLAY; ADVERTISING; SEALS
    • G09B—EDUCATIONAL OR DEMONSTRATION APPLIANCES; APPLIANCES FOR TEACHING, OR COMMUNICATING WITH, THE BLIND, DEAF OR MUTE; MODELS; PLANETARIA; GLOBES; MAPS; DIAGRAMS
    • G09B29/00—Maps; Plans; Charts; Diagrams, e.g. route diagram
    • G09B29/003—Maps
    • G09B29/006—Representation of non-cartographic information on maps, e.g. population distribution, wind direction, radiation levels, air and sea routes
    • G09B29/007—Representation of non-cartographic information on maps, e.g. population distribution, wind direction, radiation levels, air and sea routes using computer methods

Definitions

  • the locate request may include an address or some other location-related information describing the geographic location of a work site at which the excavation is to be performed, as well as a description of the dig area (e.g., a text description), such as its location relative to certain landmarks and/or its approximate dimensions, within which there is a plan to disturb the ground at the work site.
  • One-call centers similarly may receive locate requests for design projects (for which, as discussed above, there may be no immediate plan to excavate or otherwise disturb the ground).
  • the one-call center consults the polygon maps to identify which member polygons intersect with all or a portion of the buffer zone so as to notify these underground facility owners/members and/or their agents of the proposed excavation or design project.
  • the buffer zones around an indicated work site utilized by one-call centers for this purpose typically embrace a geographic area that includes but goes well beyond the actual work site, and in many cases the geographic area enclosed by a buffer zone is significantly larger than the actual dig area in which excavation or other similar activities are planned.
  • the area enclosed by a given member polygon generally does not provide a precise indication of where one or more underground facilities may in fact be found.
  • arrows, flags, darts, or other types of physical marks may be used to mark the presence or absence of an underground facility in a dig area, in addition to or as an alternative to a material applied to the ground (such as paint, chalk, dye, tape) along the path of a detected utility.
  • the marks resulting from any of a wide variety of materials and/or objects used to indicate a presence or absence of underground facilities generally are referred to as "locate marks.”
  • locate marks Often, different color materials and/or physical objects may be used for locate marks, wherein different colors correspond to different utility types.
  • Proving whether the underground facility was properly located and marked can be difficult after the excavation (or after some damage, e.g., a gas explosion), because in many cases the physical locate marks (e.g., the marking material or other physical marks used to mark the facility on the surface of the dig area) will have been disturbed or destroyed during the excavation process (and/or damage resulting from excavation).
  • the physical locate marks e.g., the marking material or other physical marks used to mark the facility on the surface of the dig area
  • each technician typically is dispatched to perform field operations at any given time, and over any given time period each technician may be assigned numerous work orders, or "tickets" specifying aspects of the field operations to be performed.
  • the volume of tickets per technician may be particularly high in the construction industry, especially in connection with locate and marking operations.
  • the inventors have recognized and appreciated that implementing and performing meaningful oversight and quality control activities in a timely fashion for several field technicians each performing several field operations in a given time period may present challenges, and that failure to perform meaningful oversight and quality control activities may adversely affect customer satisfaction.
  • inventive embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to methods, apparatus and systems for computer-aided determination of quality assessment for locate and marking operations.
  • a quality assessment decision is solely under the discretion of a human reviewer, albeit facilitated in some respects by computer-aided display of information, and electronic record- keeping and communication functions associated with the quality assessment result(s).
  • information related to a locate and marking operation is electronically analyzed such that a quality assessment is not based solely on human discretion, but rather based at least in part on some predetermined criteria and/or metrics that facilitate an automated determination of quality assessment.
  • an automated quality assessment system may receive information related to a locate and marking operation from one or more sources of electronic data (also referred to herein as "field information" or "field data”), analyze the contents of the received electronic data, and automatically assess the quality of the operation based at least in part on the analysis.
  • automated analysis of at least some of the received electronic data relating to the locate and marking operation facilitates further analysis and/or quality assessment by a human, in which the quality assessment is not based solely on the discretion of the human, but is significantly informed in some manner by automated analysis of data.
  • the method comprises: A) comparing first information relating to the locate and/or marking operation to second information obtained from at least one facilities map; B) automatically generating, based on A), at least one indication of a quality assessment of the locate and marking operation; and C) electronically storing on the at least one computer-readable storage medium, and/or electronically transmitting via the at least one I/O interface, the at least one indication of the quality assessment so as to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment.
  • actuate or “trigger” (verb form) are used interchangeably to refer to starting or causing any device, program, system, and/or any combination thereof to work, operate, and/or function in response to some type of signal or stimulus.
  • actuation signals or stimuli may include, but are not limited to, any local or remote, physical, audible, inaudible, visual, non-visual, electronic, mechanical, electromechanical, biomechanical, biosensing or other signal, instruction, or event.
  • actuator or “trigger” (noun form) are used interchangeably to refer to any method or device used to generate one or more signals or stimuli to cause or causing actuation.
  • Figure 7 illustrates a flow diagram of an example of a process for automatically generating a quality assessment of a locate and marking operation based, at least in part, on a comparison of information obtained from equipment used during the locate and marking operation and one or more facilities maps, in accordance with the present disclosure
  • Various inventive embodiments disclosed herein relate to methods, apparatus and systems for performing oversight and quality control in field service operations, such as locate and marking operations.
  • approvers and/or managers may review the quality of these locate and marking operations in real time and/or within a certain amount of time (e.g., within one day) of completion of the operation.
  • the review of a locate and marking operation by a human e.g., an approver or manager
  • the determination of a quality assessment for the operation based solely on the discretion of the human is referred to herein as a "manual quality assessment.”
  • the indication of the assessed quality of a locate operation may be a categorized into one or more of a plurality of quality categories. Any suitable number and type of categories may be used, as the invention is not limited in this respect.
  • a locate operation may be automatically categorized as either, (a) approved - no further action needed; (b) satisfactory, but the locate technician needs coaching or training; (c) unsatisfactory - the ticket needs quality control (QC) action; or (d) real-time prompt - an aspect of the assessment may be suitable for prompting the locate technician in real time with respect to, for example, performing an immediate verification and/or corrective action.
  • a score, grade, or other graduated indication (e.g., based on some maximum range or scale) may be provided as an indication of quality assessment in connection with a locate and marking operation.
  • FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an automated quality assessment system 1800.
  • Automated quality assessment system 1800 may be, for example, a computer system having at least one hardware processor 1803, a memory 1805 that comprises at least one tangible storage medium (e.g., RAM, ROM, Flash memory, one or more magnetic storage devices, one or more optical storage devices, or any other type of tangible storage medium), and at least one communications interface 1801.
  • Memory 1805 may store computer-readable instructions of an automated quality assessment application 1200, which may be executed by processor 1803.
  • VWL application 1230 of data sources 1216 is a computer software application that provides an electronic drawing tool that may be used by excavators for electronically marking up, for example, a digital aerial image of the dig area.
  • an excavator may electronically draw markings (e.g., white lines) on an aerial image of the site, indicating where digging is planned.
  • These marked up digital images may be saved as, for example, VWL images 1232, which may include accompanied with metadata pertaining to various information in the images.
  • One or more VWL images 1232 in turn may be associated with, for example, tickets 1220 and transmitted to locate companies.
  • a VWL image 1232 may include metadata corresponding to any markings or content in the image; in particular, geographic information including geographic coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude values) for any dig area indicators marked on the image may accompany or be included in an image file as metadata, and these geographic coordinates may be employed in some manner as part of a quality assessment process.
  • geographic information derived from a virtual white lines (VWL) application 1230 e.g., geographic coordinates associated with one or more dig area indicators contained in a VLW image 1232 may be used by automated quality assessment application 1200 to filter or limit the contents of either field data or reference data prior to analysis/comparison.
  • geographic coordinates associated with a dig area indicator may be used to filter out some contents that does not relate to a specifically delimited dig area within a work site as defined by the VWL application (e.g., first geographic information or another portion of information may be selected from the field data, and/or second geographic information or another portion of information may be selected from the reference data, that relates only to a geographic area delimited by the VWL geographic information).
  • the dig area indicator coordinates may identify a plurality of points along a perimeter of the delimited dig area, and these coordinates may be used to select specific geographic information (e.g., filter out geographic information outside of the delimited dig area).
  • Table 3 shows an example of the correlation of marking material color to the type of facility to be marked.
  • landmark information may be acquired from locate equipment particularly configured to operate in a landmark mode so as to acquire such information, as well as one or more other modes (e.g., "locate mode” or "marking mode") to accomplish functions relating to detection and/or marking of underground facilities.
  • Tables 6A and 6B below show examples of landmark information that may be included in an electronic record forming part of either marking device data 1252 or locate receiver data 1254 of locating equipment data 1250.
  • Table 6A shows the format and content of an electronic record entry for a utility pole, which includes one geo- location data point
  • Table 6B shows the format and content of an electronic record entry for a pedestal, which includes four geo-location data points (i.e., one for each corner of the pedestal).
  • the format and content shown below in Tables 6A and 6B is provided primarily for purposes of illustration, and that a variety of formats and content may be employed for an electronic record entry for landmark information.
  • the digital images may be marked up "manually” by a technician (e.g., using a stylus or other type of user interface in conjunction with the digital image displayed in a display field) to include one or more electronic locate marks and/or one or more identifiers for environmental landmarks.
  • a digital image may be marked up "automatically” by importing data, for example, from one or more pieces of locate equipment (e.g., a locate device, a marking device, or a combined locate and marking device) and overlaying the imported data on the digital image.
  • an EM image 1262 may include metadata corresponding to any markings or content in the image; in particular, geographic coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude values) for any dig area indicator, electronic locate marks, and/or landmarks marked on the image may accompany or be included in an image file as metadata. Accordingly, these geographic coordinates, as well as any other information provided by EM application, may be employed in some manner as part of a quality assessment process (e.g., as field information/data, or in some instances as reference information/data, or in some instances to pre-process or filter one or both of field information/data and reference information/data prior to comparison).
  • a quality assessment process e.g., as field information/data, or in some instances as reference information/data, or in some instances to pre-process or filter one or both of field information/data and reference information/data prior to comparison.
  • the geo-locations of two termination or end-points of a given facility line may be provided by the map, the geo-location of any point on the facility line may be determined from these two end- points.
  • FIG. 6 is a more specific example of the generic process 1900 discussed above in connection with Figure 3, and describes an automated quality assessment based on a completed or closed ticket for which it is presumed that a locate and/or marking operation was actually performed by a technician, it should be appreciated that the concepts generally outlined in the process 1300 may be applied to various types of available information relating to a requested locate operation and marking operation, whether performed separately or in tandem, and irrespective of actual performance of the locate operation and/or the marking operation, so as to assess the quality of the requested operation.
  • Various types of field information about the performance of the locate and/or marking operation may be compared to any of a number of different types of reference information that may be obtained from one or more facilities maps.
  • Some examples of types of field information about the performance of a locate and/or marking operation and types of reference information obtained from one or more facilities maps that may be compared to assess the quality of the locate and/or marking operation are provided below.
  • the invention is not limited to comparing the particular types of information provided in these examples.
  • various techniques for comparing field information and reference information obtained from one or more facilities maps may be used, and the invention is not limited to any particular technique.
  • field information pertaining to an arrangement or pattern (i.e., relative positions) of multiple lines for a same type of facility and/or multiple different facility types detected and/or marked during a locate and marking information may be compared to similar reference information ("relative position information") derived from one or more facilities maps, irrespective of the presumed physical geographic location(s) of the respective facilities/lines (i.e., the general pattern of lines detected and/or marked in the field may be compared to the general pattern of corresponding lines as illustrated in one or more facilities maps).
  • reference information derived from one or more facilities maps
  • a particular type of facility marked may be selected as the subject for assessment by comparison to one or more facilities maps in any of a variety of ways. For example, in some embodiments, a type of facility for which such a comparison has not yet been performed may be selected. In situations where there are multiple facility types for which the comparison has not yet been performed, the facility type may be selected via user input pursuant to a selection query, may be selected based on a risk assessment associated with each facility type, or alternatively may be selected randomly or based on some other factor (e.g., the time at which the facility was marked relative to the other facilities, the number or length of locate marks used to mark the facility).
  • a set of field geo-location data points are identified that are indicative of geographical locations at which marking material of the color of the selected facility type was dispensed.
  • an actuation data set for a marking device actuation includes a set of geo-location data points at which the marking device was actuated (and dispensed marking material).
  • the geo-location data set for act-1 includes the data points 2650.9348N,08003.5057W, 2650.9353N,08003.5055W, and 2650.9356N,08003.5055W.
  • a set of "reference geo-location data points" indicating the presumed physical location of a facility line of the type of the selected facility may be obtained from the selected facilities map(s), for comparison to the set of field geo-location data points obtained in act 603.
  • latitude is defined as the angle from a point on the surface of a sphere to the equatorial plane of the sphere
  • longitude is defined as the angle east or west of a reference meridian between two geographical poles of the sphere to another meridian that passes through an arbitrary point on the surface of the sphere.
  • the center of the Earth serves as a reference point that is the origin of the coordinate system.
  • the Earth is not perfectly spherical, as it is compressed towards the center at the poles. Consequently, using a geocentric coordinate system can result in inaccuracies.
  • a geographic point on the surface of Earth may have a different latitude and longitude values in different coordinate systems.
  • a stop sign at the corner Maple St. and Main St. may have a latitude and longitude of (LATi, LONi) in the WGS84 coordinate system, but may have a latitude and longitude Of (LAT 2 , LON 2 ) in the NAD83 coordinate system (where LAT, ⁇ LAT 2 and/or LONi ⁇ LON 2 ).
  • LATi, LONi latitude and longitude Of
  • the coordinate system provided by the map may not be a global coordinate system, but rather may be a "projected" coordinate system.
  • a map projection representing the curved surface of the Earth on a flat surface or plane is known as a "map projection.” Representing a curved surface in two dimensions causes distortion in shape, area, distance, and/or direction. Different map projections cause different types of distortions. For example, a projection could maintain the area of a feature but alter its shape.
  • the geo-location points obtained from the marking information may be geo-locations in the WGS84 coordinate system (i.e., the coordinate system typically used by GPS equipment), whereas the geo-location points obtained from the facilities map may be in the NAD83 coordinate system.
  • the coordinates from the marking information and the coordinates from the facilities map may be put in a common frame of reference.
  • the coordinates from the facilities map may be converted to the WGS84 coordinate system
  • the coordinates from the marking information may be converted to the NAD83 coordinate system
  • the coordinates from the facilities map and the coordinates from the marking information may both be converted to a third common coordinate system.
  • the shape of the facility line as indicated on the facilities map may be compared to the shape of the line as indicated by the locate marks dispensed during the locate and/or marking operation, irrespective of their relative geo- locations, such that quality is assessed based on how close these shapes are to each other.
  • set X may include the field points and set Y may include the reference points.
  • Process 700 defines the distance between the two sets X and Y as a vector of distances do...d n , where each distance d, indicates the distance between a point x, in set X and the point y c in set Y that is closest to x,.
  • the process next continues to act 50, where it is determined whether there are any more points in the set X to process. When it is determined that the set X contains one or more points yet to be processed, the process 700 continues to act 60, where the value of n is incremented by one. The process then returns act 20, where the next point in the set X is selected. If, at act 50, it is determined that there are no more points in set X to process, the process 700 ends.
  • each of the sets X and Y may include any number of geo-location data points, as the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.
  • one or both of the sets may have only one geo-location data point specifying a single point on Earth.
  • one or both sets may have multiple geo-location data points specifying multiple points on Earth.
  • the process 700 is also not limited to any particular technique for determining the distance between two points, as any of numerous techniques may be used.
  • a distance between two points may be calculated according to the great-circle distance in spherical geometry, using Vincenty's inverse method for computing geographical distance between two points, or using some other method.
  • Table 7 shows one possible technique for generating a quality assessment of a locate and/or marking operation in this way using a scoring table.
  • Techniques for generating a scoring table and computing a score using a scoring table are described in greater detail in U.S. Non-provisional Patent Application Serial No. 12/493,109, filed June 26, 2009, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation,” incorporated by reference herein.
  • the criterion on which the quality of locate and/or marking operation is being assessed is listed in the leftmost column.
  • the table includes one or more expected or reference values or ranges for the criterion, also referred to as "metrics,” against which information about the locate and/or marking operation is measured/compared.
  • the metrics are divided into several “scoring categories,” namely, value(s)/condition(s) that, if met, result in a particular score.
  • the criterion on which the quality of the locate operation is being assessed is the percentage of points at which locate marks were dispensed that are within some threshold distance of the closest corresponding point on the facility line, as indicated by the facilities map(s).
  • For each scoring category there is a metric used to evaluate the contents of the distance vector [do...d n ] resulting from the comparison of the field data and the reference data to determine in which scoring category the results of the comparison fall.
  • a score, grade, or categorization may be assigned as an output to categorize the quality assessment process based on into which scoring category the assessment falls.
  • each scoring category may be associated with a number of points (e.g., 2 points for Preferred, 1 point for Marginal, and 0 points for Unacceptable), and the quality assessment may be awarded the number of points associated with the scoring category into which it falls.
  • 2 points may be awarded, because the operation falls in the "Preferred" scoring category.
  • the number of points awarded may be converted to a percent score that is based on the number of points awarded and a maximum possible number of points.
  • the locate and/or marking operation received two points out of a maximum possible two points.
  • the locate and/or marking operation may be assigned a score of 2/2 or 100%. If the assessment results were to fall in the "Marginal" category and receive only one point, then it may be assigned a score of 1/2 or 50%. Similarly, if the assessment results were to fall in the unacceptable category and receive zero points, then it may be assigned a score of 0/2 or 0%.
  • a range of percent scores may be converted to letter scores to provide an indication of quality. For example, a percent score of 100-90% may be converted to a letter score of A, 89-80% may be converted to a letter score of B, 79- 70% may be converted to a letter score of C, 69-60% may be converted to a letter score of D, and ⁇ 60% may be converted to a letter score of F.
  • a range of percent scores may be converted to a simple PASS/FAIL score. For example, a percent score of 100-60% may be converted to a score of PASS and a percent score of ⁇ 60% may be converted to a score of FAIL.
  • scoring categories are used, such that the locate and/or marking operation is classified as either Preferred, Marginal, and Unacceptable.
  • the number of scoring categories is merely illustrative, as any number of scoring categories could be used, and various mutually exclusive metrics may be assigned to these scoring categories. For example, in some embodiments, five scoring may be used (e.g., Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Unacceptable), while in other embodiments more than five scoring categories may be used.
  • the locate and/or marking operation receives six points (i.e., 4+2+0) out of a total possible 9 points. Thus, the locate and/or marking operation receives a score of 6/9 points or 66.7%.
  • field information pertaining to an arrangement or pattern (i.e., relative positions) of multiple lines for a same type of facility and/or multiple different facility types detected and/or marked during a locate and marking information may be compared to similar reference information derived from one or more facilities maps, irrespective of the presumed physical geographic location(s) of the respective facilities/lines (i.e., the general pattern of lines detected and/or marked in the field may be compared to the general pattern of corresponding lines as illustrated in one or more facilities maps).
  • the various concepts discussed herein may be applied similarly to the foregoing various types of information to facility an automated quality assessment process based on one or more facilities maps.
  • the information used to render line patterns may be suitably filtered, interpolated, smoothed or otherwise processed, to enhance the appearance of the line patterns.
  • features corresponding to field data and features corresponding to reference data may be differentiated in a display field in any of a variety of manners (e.g., different line types, symbols or patterns; different colors or shades of related colors; different vertical planes of display, etc.) to allow for visual perception of both the field data and the reference data.
  • each of the field data and the reference data may be displayed as separate "layers" of the visual rendering, such that a viewer of the visual rendering may turn on and turn off displayed data based on a categorization of the displayed data.
  • all field data may be categorized generally under one layer designation (e.g., "Field"), and independently enabled or disabled for display (e.g., hidden) accordingly.
  • all reference data may be categorized generally under another layer designation (e.g., "Reference”) and independently enabled or disabled for display accordingly.
  • any of the above-mentioned general categories for layers may have sub-categories for sub-layers, such that each sub-layer may also be selectively enabled or disabled for viewing by a viewer.
  • each sub-layer may also be selectively enabled or disabled for viewing by a viewer.
  • different facility types that may have been marked (and indicated in the field data by color, for example) may be categorized under different sub-layer designations (e.g., "Field - Electric;” “Field - Gas;” etc.); in this manner, a viewer may be able to hide the electric field data while viewing the gas field data, or vice versa, in addition to having the option to view or hide all field data.
  • Figure 9 shows an illustrative computer 800 that is an example of a type of computer that may serve as quality assessment system 1800 and may execute quality assessment application 1200.
  • Computer 800 comprises a memory 810 that stores a plurality of facilities maps 830a...830n, one or more processing units 812 (also referred to herein simply as "processors"), one or more communication interfaces 814, one or more display units 816, and one or more user input devices 818.
  • the memory 810 may comprise any computer-readable media, and may store computer instructions (also referred to herein as "processor-executable instructions") for implementing the various functionalities described herein.
  • the processing unit(s) 812 may be used to execute the instructions.
  • memory 810 may store computer-executable instructions of automated quality assessment application 1200 which, when executed by processors) 812, performs the processes illustrated in Figure 6, 7, and/or 8 to compare data obtained from a locate and/or marking operation with data obtained from a facilities map(s) 830, and generate a quality assessment based on this comparison.
  • the communication interface(s) 814 may be coupled to a wired or wireless network, bus, or other communication means and may therefore allow the computer 800 to transmit communications to and/or receive communications from other devices.
  • the display unit(s) 816 may be provided, for example, to allow a user 240 to view various information in connection with execution of the instructions.
  • the user input device(s) 818 may be provided, for example, to allow the user to make manual adjustments, make selections, enter data or various other information, and/or interact in any of a variety of manners with the processor during execution of the instructions.
  • the functionality of the locating equipment may be altered based on the score at a given point in time. For example, if during the locate and/or marking operation, the quality score drops below a certain threshold, the marking device may be disabled.
  • the various methods or processes outlined herein may be coded as software that is executable on one or more processors that employ any one of a variety of operating systems or platforms. Additionally, such software may be written using any of a number of suitable programming languages and/or programming or scripting tools, and also may be compiled as executable machine language code or intermediate code that is executed on a framework or virtual machine.
  • program or “software” are used herein in a generic sense to refer to any type of computer code or set of computer-executable instructions that can be employed to program a computer or other processor to implement various aspects of embodiments as discussed above. Additionally, it should be appreciated that according to one aspect, one or more computer programs that when executed perform methods of the present invention need not reside on a single computer or processor, but may be distributed in a modular fashion amongst a number of different computers or processors to implement various aspects of the present invention.
  • Computer-executable instructions may be in many forms, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices.
  • program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
  • functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.
  • inventive concepts may be embodied as one or more methods, of which an example has been provided.
  • the acts performed as part of the method may be ordered in any suitable way. Accordingly, embodiments may be constructed in which acts are performed in an order different than illustrated, which may include performing some acts simultaneously, even though shown as sequential acts in illustrative embodiments.
  • a reference to "A and/or B", when used in conjunction with open-ended language such as “comprising” can refer, in one embodiment, to A only (optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to B only (optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to both A and B (optionally including other elements); etc.
  • the phrase "at least one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should be understood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more of the elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including at least one of each and every element specifically listed within the list of elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the list of elements.
  • This definition also allows that elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified within the list of elements to which the phrase "at least one" refers, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified.

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  • Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
  • Geophysics And Detection Of Objects (AREA)
  • Recording Measured Values (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne des procédés, un appareil et des systèmes comprenant un ordinateur, lequel comprend au moins un processeur matériel, au moins un support de stockage tangible (mémoire) et au moins une interface d'entrée/sortie (E/S) permettant d'évaluer la qualité d'une opération de repérage et/ou de marquage. La première information relative à l'opération de repérage et/ou de marquage est comparée à la deuxième information obtenue d'au moins une carte d'installations. Une ou plusieurs indications d'une évaluation de qualité de l'opération de repérage et/ou de marquage sont automatiquement générées fondées sur une telle comparaison, et cette ou ces indications d'évaluation de qualité sont électroniquement stockées sur le support de stockage tangible et/ou transmises électroniquement via la ou les interfaces E/S afin de produire un enregistrement électronique de cette évaluation de qualité.
PCT/US2009/005416 2008-10-02 2009-09-30 Procédés et appareil permettant d'analyser des opérations de marquage et de repérage par rapport à des cartes d'installation WO2010039243A2 (fr)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
CA2739090A CA2739090C (fr) 2008-10-02 2009-09-30 Methodes et appareils d'evaluation de la qualite des operations de localisation et marquage relativement aux plans d'installation
AU2009300323A AU2009300323B2 (en) 2008-10-02 2009-09-30 Methods and apparatus for analyzing locate and marking operations with respect to facilities maps

Applications Claiming Priority (16)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10212208P 2008-10-02 2008-10-02
US10220508P 2008-10-02 2008-10-02
US10216908P 2008-10-02 2008-10-02
US10215108P 2008-10-02 2008-10-02
US61/102,122 2008-10-02
US61/102,151 2008-10-02
US61/102,205 2008-10-02
US61/102,169 2008-10-02
US12/493,109 US20090327024A1 (en) 2008-06-27 2009-06-26 Methods and apparatus for quality assessment of a field service operation
US12/493,109 2009-06-26
US12/539,497 2009-08-11
US12/539,497 US8280631B2 (en) 2008-10-02 2009-08-11 Methods and apparatus for generating an electronic record of a marking operation based on marking device actuations
US12/568,087 2009-09-28
US12/568,087 US8965700B2 (en) 2008-10-02 2009-09-28 Methods and apparatus for generating an electronic record of environmental landmarks based on marking device actuations
US12/569,192 US8620587B2 (en) 2008-10-02 2009-09-29 Methods, apparatus, and systems for generating electronic records of locate and marking operations, and combined locate and marking apparatus for same
US12/569,192 2009-09-29

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2010039243A2 true WO2010039243A2 (fr) 2010-04-08
WO2010039243A3 WO2010039243A3 (fr) 2010-07-29

Family

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Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2009/005416 WO2010039243A2 (fr) 2008-10-02 2009-09-30 Procédés et appareil permettant d'analyser des opérations de marquage et de repérage par rapport à des cartes d'installation

Country Status (3)

Country Link
AU (1) AU2009300323B2 (fr)
CA (1) CA2739090C (fr)
WO (1) WO2010039243A2 (fr)

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CN109559037A (zh) * 2018-11-29 2019-04-02 陈洪杰 一种开挖呼叫系统

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US9473626B2 (en) 2008-06-27 2016-10-18 Certusview Technologies, Llc Apparatus and methods for evaluating a quality of a locate operation for underground utility
US8612271B2 (en) 2008-10-02 2013-12-17 Certusview Technologies, Llc Methods and apparatus for analyzing locate and marking operations with respect to environmental landmarks

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US20070219722A1 (en) * 2006-03-14 2007-09-20 Sawyer Tom Y Jr System and method for collecting and updating geographical data
US20080228294A1 (en) * 2007-03-13 2008-09-18 Dycom Identity, Llc Marking system and method with location and/or time tracking

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US20060282280A1 (en) * 2004-07-29 2006-12-14 Christian Stotz Ticket and data management
US20070219722A1 (en) * 2006-03-14 2007-09-20 Sawyer Tom Y Jr System and method for collecting and updating geographical data
US20080228294A1 (en) * 2007-03-13 2008-09-18 Dycom Identity, Llc Marking system and method with location and/or time tracking

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN109559037A (zh) * 2018-11-29 2019-04-02 陈洪杰 一种开挖呼叫系统

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
CA2739090A1 (fr) 2010-04-08
AU2009300323A1 (en) 2010-04-08
AU2009300323B2 (en) 2013-09-05
WO2010039243A3 (fr) 2010-07-29
CA2739090C (fr) 2016-11-08

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