Utility records, drafted into the base map. Every line traced to its source.

Layers

Caisson drafts the existing utilities from the records you collect, ties each line to its source, and flags every missing or conflicting record.

STA 1+00The records

Every owner sends a different form. Someone has to decide what to believe.

Before a street or pipe job is designed, someone at the design firm draws every buried pipe and cable into the base map, from GIS files, scanned PDFs and decades-old map sheets.

Overhead electric lines and poles drawn from an electric cooperative's GIS file
wmNumber_1Three Phase
wmTypeOverhead
Shape_Leng348.83
wmNumber_1Three Phase
wmTypeOverhead
Shape_Leng348.83
Electric: GIS file
A scanned printout of water lines drawn over a street map, with scanner streaks
Water: scanned PDF
Photo of a city sewer map sheet in a ring binder
Sewer: map sheet in a binder

STA 2+00How it works

Records in. A base map and a list of flags out.

Send the records as you received them

GIS files, CAD drawings, scans and screenshots, read on one computer. No outside AI service sees them.

Get a base map in your coordinates and CAD layers

A DXF your drafter finishes and your engineer seals. Every line keeps the file, layer or page it came from.

See every missing or conflicting record

Each flag shows both records at that spot, what to draw and whom to ask, checked by hand. Six of the 103 flags on the US 290 job:

  1. Overhead electric labelled for one owner sits on another owner's electric line.
  2. The pipeline record crosses US 290 about 340 ft from where it was located.
  3. The two survey sheets start the 4-inch gas main about 160 ft apart.
  4. A 12-inch water line labelled as the city's has no city record at its west end.
  5. Located overhead electric with no electric record in the package.
  6. The city gas map sheet shows 2-inch steel where the city GIS shows 1¼-inch plastic.

The draft and its flags on a public job: US 290 in Brenham, Texas.

Drafted base map of buried utilities along US 290 in Brenham, Texas, with numbered notes where records are missing or conflict745+00755+00765+00775+00785+00795+00805+00815+00825+00835+00845+00

US 290 at SH 36, Brenham, Texas, drafted from public records: the state highway plan set and the city's GIS and gas map sheets.

  • Water
  • Sewer
  • Gas
  • Electric
  • Telecom

The numbers are the six flags listed in step 3. A number appears twice where one flag covers two places.

STA 3+00One flag

One flag from the list. Steel or plastic?

6

The city gas map sheet shows 2-inch steel where the city GIS shows 1¼-inch plastic.

The city gas GIS at the same place: the main drawn as 1¼-inch plastic1¼"-P plastic
Photo of the city gas map sheet: a green dotted line labelled 2-inch steel down Prairie Lea St, with a note at No. 1305 reading 1-inch poly, inserted2"-S steel

Drag the line to compare the two records at the same spot.

City gas map sheet

2-inch steel down Prairie Lea St, 15 ft from back of curb. A note at No. 1305 reads 1-inch poly, inserted.

Photo in the TxDOT US 290 utility package

City gas GIS

1¼-inch plastic on the same route, in segments of 170, 309 and 335 ft. No steel gas main within 500 ft on this side of the highway.

City gas GIS over OpenStreetMap streets, fitted to the sheet along the gas main

STA 4+00What is different

What is different. Every line keeps the record it came from.

Drafting by hand

Caisson drafts the first pass and keeps the record behind every line.

Maps that show one source

Caisson flags every place a record is missing or conflicts.

Maps built from public records

Caisson works from the records your firm collected, on one computer.

STA 5+00The first block

Find it in the records, not in the field.

The first block is free: send one your team has already base-mapped, and the draft comes back within five business days so you can compare it with yours.

Send it to will@getcaisson.com