Over the past several years, we have seen more utility paint marks zig-zagging across the developed landscape. What does it take to put those paint marks down and then get those marks on a map? In many cases, that paint indicates work in progress of an engineering design project. Subsurface utility engineering (SUE) experts designate the underground utilities with standard APWA colors, with surveyors coming behind them to locate and map the paint marks. The process typically involves a survey crew walking across the painted landscape and surveying each mark with a global positioning system (GPS) or total station equipment. This tedious process requires surveyors to work around congested areas or near roadway traffic. Through using high-resolution drone imagery, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) drone pilots document sites through orthomosaics and dense colorized point clouds generated from software such as Pix4D and Agisoft. These software solutions and resulting datasets provide accurate visualizations to create the digital twin of the paint mark designations.

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Chris Godwin

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