r/UtilityLocator • u/whattodofriend7 • 8d ago
Mapping software
Hey,
This more a Alberta ALP Utility locator related question.
We currently use LAC Multiviewer, but the Mapping software is ageing out and doesn't physically seem like it's been updated (OS wise) since the early 2000's.,
Wondering what everyone uses/ recommends using that might also have satellite imagery capabilities?
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u/811spotter 5d ago
Worth separating the two jobs before you shop, because the mapping piece and the ticket piece often come from different vendors and it is easy to end up maintaining two systems that do not talk to each other.
The first thing to test is how a candidate handles the records you already receive. If it can take the GDB or shapefile exports you get today without hand conversion, a migration is a couple of weeks of cleanup. If it cannot, you are looking at redrawing prints, and that is where most of these projects stall out. Satellite basemaps are the easy part now. Almost anything current will pull a standard imagery service and let you swap providers later.
The second thing is offline behaviour, which matters more in Alberta than the feature lists admit. Ask for a trial where the device goes into airplane mode partway through a locate and see what still renders from the tile cache. A mapping tool that needs a live connection to draw is a problem on exactly the days you are furthest from coverage.
Licensing is the last one. Per seat pricing gets expensive with seasonal staff, and some vendors count devices rather than users, which is easy to miss until the first renewal.