Patent ID: 8861795

Claim:
An apparatus for facilitating detection of a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility within a dig area, wherein at least a portion of the dig area may be excavated or disturbed during excavation activities, the apparatus comprising: a communication interface; a memory to store processor-executable instructions; and a processing unit coupled to the communication interface and the memory, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions by the processing unit, the processing unit: processes at least one marked-up digital image of a geographic area including the dig area, the at least one marked-up digital image including at least one boundary indicator to delimit the dig area, and at least one offset indicator to indicate at least one offset distance between at least one environmental landmark in the geographic area and an edge of the at least one boundary indicator to delimit the dig area, the processing unit converting the at least one boundary indicator in the at least one marked-up digital image to a plurality of geographic coordinates representing the delimited dig area; generates a locate request ticket based on the processed at least one marked-up digital image, the locate request ticket identifying the dig area to be excavated and requesting performance of a locate operation in the dig area to detect the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area, the locate request ticket including image data and non-image data associated with the dig area, wherein: the image data includes the at least one marked-up digital image of the geographic area including the dig area; and the non-image data includes: an identifier of at least one of an owner, an operator, and a representative of the at least one underground facility; and the plurality of geographic coordinates representing the delimited dig area; and controls at least one of the communication interface and the memory to at least one of electronically transmit and electronically store information relating to the locate request ticket so as to reduce uncertainty or confusion about an exact location and geographic extent of the dig area based at least in part on the image data included in the locate request ticket, and thereby facilitate the performance of the locate operation to detect the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area.