Plex-Earth in the Utility Industry:
Utilities projects often cover vast areas, require equally vast volumes of information and can take years to develop, yet on a day-to-day basis your workflow often means zooming right in on problem hotspots and constructing new solutions. Plex-Earth, a geo-visualization plugin for AutoCAD and BricsCAD, easily covers both those scenarios.
It’s a complete, self-contained imagery and terrain data platform designed specifically for the needs of construction engineers. When you finally turn to the engineers, the engineers turn to Plex-Earth!
It offers a range of benefits to engineers in the utilities industry, with the top 3 being:
Better planning and design: With access to satellite and aerial imagery, along with 3D terrain, you get a more detailed understanding of the project area – even over very large or long areas. Planning the placement of pipelines, power lines, and other infrastructure is easier when you can easily view existing infrastructure and the topography of the land, from right inside AutoCAD.
Improved asset management: By overlaying your current utility network data onto clear, updated imagery, you can see where assets are in relation to the real world. Our time-based imagery can help identify man-made or natural risks, such as the encroachment of trees, water or new construction close to critical equipment. It can aid in creating maintenance routes, while our easily-booked custom drone flights can offer a sharper, more useful view than any site visit for checking and trouble-shooting.
Enhanced communication: With the ability to create 3D models and licensed, professional imagery, you can provide high quality visual representations to stakeholders, making it easier to communicate you plans and proposals to customers, up-stream regulatory bodies, and other interested parties.
Plex-Earth maps pipelines, power cables or even roads, directly onto a georeferenced background image, composed by precision alignment of as many high-resolution photos as needed.
Essential features for the utilities industry:
Multi-image mosaic creation that precisely aligns with the Earth’s curvature
Calculating soil volume for earthworks: Plex-Earth shows you the terrain and calculates soil volumes for you.
Visual – see trends of growth and development with actual time-based satellite photos, without changing apps or losing resolution
Clearly see roads and all other infrastructure, from inside AutoCAD
Flip between multiple imagery providers for the best or most suitable view
Drones - keep within your budget and control, with easy on-demand ordering of flights by fully licensed local pilots!
That last point, booking of custom drone flights, can be invaluable for detailed surveys of transmission equipment, without the costs and complex decision-making required to maintain your own drones and operators. Just select the area or areas in AutoCAD and receive a fixed quote, keeping you in full control of your budget, with a single invoice. The data and imagery is again placed directly into AutoCAD for you.
Plex-Earth's technical support team is also responsive and knowledgeable, helping your engineers navigate the tool and get the most out of the above features.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Plex-Earth offers many benefits for the utilities industry, including better planning, better asset management, and enhanced communication. Its versatility, wide variety of data and imagery providers, along with an easy, intuitive user interface, make it a powerful tool for exactly the kind of tasks faced by utility engineers.