Patent ID: 8589202

Claim:
A marking apparatus to mark a presence or an absence of an underground facility, the marking apparatus comprising: a housing; a marking dispenser holder coupled to the housing to hold a replaceable marking material; an actuator that, when actuated, causes dispensing of the marking material; a display device coupled to the housing; at least one sensor, coupled to the housing, to output geographic information indicative of a geographic location of the marking apparatus; at least one memory; and at least one processor, communicatively coupled to the display device and the at least one memory, the at least one processor configured to cause a display of a digital image on the display device, the at least one processor further configured to generate the digital image based at least in part on first digital image data selected by the at least one processor, wherein: the at least one processor is configured to select the first digital image data based, at least in part, on: at least one of facilities map data, survey map data, land survey data, photographic image data, construction drawings, and engineering drawings; and the geographic information output by the at least one sensor and indicative of the geographic location of the marking apparatus; and the at least one processor configured to overlay, on the displayed digital image, based at least in part on the geographic location of the marking apparatus, at least one electronic marking representing the dispensed marking material and a detected presence or absence of the underground facility.