Patent ID: 8296308

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 is planned to 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: digitally searches the memory to identify a descriptor file corresponding to at least one ticket, the at least one ticket constituting an instruction to perform a locate operation to detect the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area, wherein the descriptor file comprises first information identifying the at least one ticket and wherein the descriptor file comprises second information identifying at least one image corresponding to the at least one ticket; based on identifying information in the descriptor file, identifies the at least one image corresponding to the at least one ticket, the at least one image comprising at least one indication of at least one dig area, wherein: the at least one indication comprises at least one marking delimiting the at least one dig area; the at least one dig area comprises a plurality of dig areas; the at least one image includes a plurality of images corresponding to the at least one ticket, each image of the plurality of images including one indication of the at least one indication; and the one indication in each image includes the at least one marking delimiting one dig area of the plurality of dig areas, such that different images of the plurality of images corresponding to the at least one ticket indicate different dig areas of the plurality of dig areas; automatically labels and dates the one indication in each image including the at least one marking delimiting one dig area of the plurality of dig areas, according to planned excavation stages and dates for the plurality of dig areas specified by the at least one ticket; electronically bundles the at least one image with ticket information from the at least one ticket to generate a ticket bundle; and provides the generated ticket bundle to at least one party associated with the at least one underground facility, to process the ticket bundle to facilitate the detection of the presence or the absence of the at least one underground facility.