DESIGN ENGINEERING TOOLS FOR VISUALIZING EXISTING UTILITY LINES WITHIN A LAND AREA AND VALIDATING PLACEMENT OF NEW UTILITY LINES

摘要

A design engineering tool and associated method are disclosed. The design engineering tool and method allow a user to view a photo of a land area or a map derived from the photo, to overlay the photo or map with existing utility lines and proposed utility lines, and to generate alerts regarding any conflict that is identified between a proposed utility line and an existing utility line. The tool also has an augmented reality mode where it displays visualizations of existing and proposed utility lines over a real-time image obtained from a camera. Optionally, the exact location and condition of existing utility lines can be determined using radar and camera devices that generate data describing the location and physical characteristics of the utility lines. The generated data can be imported into the design engineering tool.