Patent ID: 8290215

Claim:
A method 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 method comprising: A) electronically receiving data representing an aerial image of a geographic area including the dig area, the data including geo-coding or geographical identification metadata associated with the aerial image; B) displaying at least a portion of the aerial image on a display device, wherein the displayed aerial image includes at least one map symbol, street name, region, and/or landmark description superimposed upon or displayed separately from the geographic area in the displayed aerial image; C) in advance of the excavation activities and at a first user location remote from the dig area, sketching virtual white lines to delimit the dig area on the displayed aerial image, via a user input device and a drawing application associated with the display device, so as to generate a marked-up digital image including a delimited dig area, the marked up digital image including the virtual white lines to precisely identify boundaries of the dig area; and D) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to facilitate the detection of the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area, wherein prior to A), the method comprises: providing non-image information to identify the dig area, wherein the non-image information comprises at least one of: a text description of the dig area; an address or a lot number of at least one property within which the dig area is located; a street intersection in a vicinity of the dig area; geographic coordinates associated with the dig area; and a designated geographic work area assigned to a first user at the first user location, and wherein A) comprises: Al) electronically receiving the data representing the aerial image based at least in part on the non-image information, and wherein prior to Al), the method comprises: calculating an image extent based at least in part on the non-image information so as to facilitate an identification of the aerial image of the geographic area including the dig area.