Event: There's dye in the water!

Part of the system in the area had been subject to the Dykes Branch sewer rehab and as a result we weren't sure whether or not the lines connected in this particular area (see map below). Today we went out and checked connectivity between the lines using leak detection dye.

The dye was used was "Bright Dyes" branded dye that came in the form of drop in tablets.

Some dyed water flowing through one of the sewers.

Project: return to GPS east Olathe (near 127th & Pflumm)

Today, I went back out to the area around 127th and Pflumm to locate some of the previously unfound manholes with the assistance of Ron, Troy, and Celeste.

Celeste opening a manhole to verify the map accurately reflects the number of merging pipes and direction of flow.

Troy opening a manhole, note the damaged base

Project: GPS east Olathe (near 127th & Pflumm)

Kyle Purdon and I were sent out to investigate ownership and location of some manholes out near 127th and Pflumm. Two lines run alongside each other in this area, one belonging to the City of Olathe and the other belonging to Johnson County Wastewater (JCW). The city is currently planning a bridge to the west of the area outlined in the map below, which will cross the creek and go directly up to 127th. It is of interest because the bridge site comes very close to both sewer lines, which run near the creek itself.

Project: leawood GPS and the "Hot Week"

This week being out in the field has been hot. Really hot. Today it is supposed to be around 100 (deg F). Lately, I've been out in the area immediately to the east of 88th and Nall ave.

This area is much easier to GPS than it has been, because every manhole is located in a front yard or in the street.

Project: GPS Leawood

After returning from vacation on the 10th, I have gotten back to GPS locating in the Leawood area. Today, Brandon and I were working around the 83rd and State Line area. Had quite a success locating manholes, although a few remain unknown, either hiding in flower beds, under sheds, or unexistent. Talked with a City of Leawood Public Works guy who was out doing some utility locating as well and he said there were a couple of JCW manholes they tried to find to spray mark for construction in a couple of areas to the South where I have not reached yet. Hopefully I will be able to resume editing the GIS database again once the database switch and what not is completed.

Project: More Prairie Village GIS & GPS

-Today, went out to the Prairie Village area to take some more GPS data near 79th and Mission. Decided it was time to leave around 1:30pm, because the Satellite lock for the Trimble XH was beginning to fade, following the usual phenomenon (every afternoon is a poor signal compared to before noon) Jim and I noticed.
-Got back to the office and post processed (using Trimble's Pathfinder Office 3.10) the data collected and imported it into ArcGIS. Picked up on where I had left after yesterdays data loss snapping the sewer lines over to their corrected positions, including some of my data that had been collected & imported previously in the week.

A shot showing some of the Peridian GPS data along with my GPS data
-Also, thanks to some schedule switching, I will no longer be in on Fridays, how sad. The benefits of doing ten hours for the first four days of the week.
-Another note, today was Kyle Purdon's birthday, Happy Birthday

Project: Manipulating the GPS & Sewer data in ArcGIS

Today, I started lining up the existing sewer profiles with the GPS points using the ArcGIS software. The process is relatively simple, set the snap onto the three different GPS datasets and then snap each manhole and sewer line onto the GPS point. This process is visible in the picture below, the light blue/highlighted line shows where the currently selected sewer was on the map, and the thin green line is where the sewer will be after the software redraws the image. Down at the bottom, at manhole 38, you can see a set of sewer lines & manhole that are waiting to be snapped into place onto the green GPS marker. The green GPS markers are the data points collected by Peridian, while the not visible "salmon" and pink colored crosshairs are the two data sets that Kyle Purdon and I have collected over the first two days of this project.

Project: Prarie Village GPS day 2

Went out again today to do some more GPS locating and extended my area I covered out to Mission Road and as far south as 79th. Nearby some of the manholes I was locating, Insituform was doing a pipe lining. It was pretty interesting to see the little bit I did. This GPS project should lats quite a bit fo the summer, as some of the manholes are difficult to locate and may even require bringing out a crew with metal detectors, poke rods, and even maybe the line TV truck. Most of the morning had poor satellite reception, which made it slow to keep progressing, because the GPS reciever kept pausing to gain enough satellites to keep logging data.

Project: Prarie Village GPS

Today, Kyle Purdon, the new intern in the engineering department, and I went out to Prarie Village in the 77th and Belinder area to do some manhole locating for the GIS database. Initially of the first 6 we attempted to find, we found 1. After that it became significantly easier to find the next few manholes. A few attempts had to be aborted because of angry dogs, etc. The area has been partially covered by Peridian Group, and we are going in to locate the manholes that they couldn't find.

This map is just some of the area we/I will be covering in the next few weeks.

Project: Coupling GIS with GPS

Today Jim Bills placed ArcGIS 9.1 on my computer so that once I start bringing in the new GPS data from the Leawood sewer area I can go and correct the old manhole positions to the new GPS plotted points. For now he has my expirementing with GIS, adding and managing layers, working on varying label types with the Maplex label engine, getting layer data, changing the point label/symbol and more. I thought I'd post a screenshot of some of the data I had imported.

Imported into this view are the following layers:
-addpt - includes the address point database, can bring up house #'s property ID's, etc
-co_cent - street centerlines
-indx_arc (off) - 10 foot topo contours
-co_cov -"section" markings
-soils (off) - soil quality/type map data
-Ortho2005_NE (off) - includes the aerial photography for the NE part of the county
-Ortho2005_NW (off) - includes the aerial photography for the NW part of the county
-Ortho2005_SE - includes the aerial photography for the SE part of the county
-Ortho2005_SW (off) - includes the aerial photography for the SW part of the county

The reason several of the layers are off is that everytime you move the map it has to redraw all the layers (you can set zoom thresholds, one is set for soil, but soil is off anyways) so if your zoomed out at the city level and move to the side just a little bit it redraws thousands of polylines, points, etc which can take quite a while.

Field Work: GPS benchmark comparison

This afternoon, Jim and I took the GPS unit out again to test it against some known benchmarks. Using several surveying monuments and section corners, we put our GPS unit and error correcting to the test. Most of our test points came from here:

Map on official JoCo AIMS mapping page

Field Work: GPS testing at Sunset

In conjunction with yesterday's meeting, I took our GPS reciever out around the building plotting the nearby manholes to see if we were getting the same good data we got yesterday in Belton. One thing we changed was instead of post processing with 1 base stations data, we set up a 'triangle' of base stations around our area so that we can get even better honed in data.

Meeting: GPS Training/Refresher

Meeting in Belton with Jim Bills and Kevin Figge at Seiler Instrument to go over the new Trimble Xh (we used to have an Xt) we have at JCW. Took it outside and tested it compared to their known GPS benchmark. We got within 1/2 foot I believe, which is better than needed accuracy for us to mark manholes.

Field Work: GPS with Jim Bills Part II

Today Jim Bills, Nazar Albarghsh, and myself drove to Mission, Kansas to do some training and checking of certain manholes. Jim and I went over using the GPS reciever and "popping" manhole lids to check that the number of pipes and direction they travel match what is on the maps. Then Jim and Nazar walked around to check other aspects of the map for accuracy while I "ran" the GPS reciever. Operating the GPS reciever is a relatively simple process. First you set up and level the tripod. Then on the GPS touchscreen you open the Mapping software and watch it acquire satellite signals and the WAAS beacon. Once its ready you select, create new waypoint, JCW sewers, and click start. It will then begin to log as indicated by the top right of the screen (you will see a number counting up from 0) You wait till it gets to 600 (seconds, which is 10 minutes) and then click stop recording and move onto antoher manhole. While the GPS is running on the second manhole return to the first, lift the lid with the hook and compare the number of pipes to those on the map.

Field Work: GPS with Jim Bills

Today I started to work with Jim Bills (JCW GIS) on some GPS stuff. Very interesting.