Abstract

Central Hudson Gas & Electric's Field Sketching and Inspection Solution
Track: Pipeline and Gas Utilities
Authors: Kevin Burton, Karl Reer, Jeffrey Puuri, Frank Bailey

This presentation will describe Central Hudson Gas & Electric's solution for utility field operations personnel to collect re-usable and editable electronic sketches of facility locations and other conditions encountered. An ArcEngine client provides the field user with vector graphic editing tools to construct geo-referenced sketches that provide enhanced legibility over freehand redlining and digital ink technologies. The GIS client is integrated with their inspection software to provide a mechanism for collecting sketch-related attribute values and for transporting sketch graphics to the back office environment. GIS technicians using ArcGIS Desktop utilize automated functions to QA the drawing and translate the field collected data into the geodatabase as feature attributes with sketch images stored as hyperlinks. Geodatabase replication and file synchronization technologies complete the cycle by providing up-to-date GIS data back to the field including previously created sketches that are available for reference and additional editing in case field conditions warrant updates.