Data Accuracy and Fielding Feedback

Engineering design and construction for overhead utilities almost always starts with having quality data. This means data collection is foundational to the work you do to bring reliable utilities to people.

Field collection techniques vary from Hastings hot sticks to advanced remote sensing from LiDAR rigs and drones, while the scope of work typically defines the bar for accuracy and completeness of the data collected.

Data Collection in Katapult Pro

For most overhead utility scopes, Katapult Pro workflows leverage photogrammetric measurements to ensure safe vertical clearances at the pole and midspan crossings.

While there are photo, attribute, and map-based workflows that do not require height measurements, a primary focus for the platform is finding ways to make sure all measurements performed in Katapult Pro are highly accurate. 

I don't like to throw around the term "user error," especially when describing the efforts of field technicians who are working long hours out in the field, braving brutal conditions, and trying to improve the connectivity and resiliency of the grid. Instead we prefer to create poka-yoke mechanisms that make user error unlikely.

When we look at two issues that can degrade measurement accuracy in Katapult Pro:

1. standing too close to the pole

2. framing the pole photos poorly

These both get pretty tricky when it comes to mistake-proofing for field technicians (Though we are doing some promising internal testing of camera clips to encourage optimal zoom levels). Until the day when all workflows guarantee perfect data accuracy, we're making some tweaks to the platform focused on providing photo feedback to your field teams.

New Photo Feedback

Over the next week, we're rolling out photo feedback to help teams improve data collection practices to ensure they're leveraging high-quality data to serve their clients best.

Katapult Pro has added new warnings to help make measurement accuracy even better. 

• Warn if a marker is found near a vertical edge - Framing the subject of the photo with space above and below will reduce the effects of distortion around the photo's edge.

• Warn if a marker is found outside the center third of the photo - The photo subject should always be centered and perpendicular to level ground.

• Warn if a marker is off the edge of a photo - Typically these are added by mistake. This is a good sanity check, especially when marker heights are typed incorrectly (ex. +558" instead of +58").

• Warn if a height photo is landscape instead of portrait- We recommend that height photos are taken in portrait orientation since photos in landscape orientation have fewer usable pixels for both calibration and cable identification.

• Warn if a height photo was taken below a 28mm focal length - Being to close to the pole can magnify errors in stick placement, calibration, leaning or warped poles, parallax, and lens distortion.

The Importance of Timely Feedback

This information is not currently provided upon upload, which means it will be important to review photos with your field teams during office processing steps, as well as coach them on ways to improve photo collection to improve measurement accuracy.

Measurement accuracy is at the core of building trust with your partners and bringing reliable utilities to people. Please reach out with any questions or help your team reach its potential!