Events

Generating a bid off of an engineering drawing is a days to weeks long process for contractors. Our software was born of necessity to reduce this lead time. The overarching goal of this project is to generate the most efficient trench shoring configurations for a given excavation/new install of underground utilities given data collected from the engineering drawings using computer vision. Trench shoring is the act of reinforcing the walls of a trench to prevent collapse. From these configurations, we will use data collected from engineers and contractors in the underground industry to generate an estimated expense and time needed for an underground utility install using conventional shoring methods and an install that also incorporates the ShoreRight trench shoring system. The final results are then calculated to provide the user with a trench shoring configuration for the entire trench as well as the back fill for the entire trench. Workflow Explained: Our software begins with the engineering drawing of a single excavation site. From this engineering drawing we can use computer vision to extract almost all of the information we need to generate a trench shoring configuration. Once our software is running, the user will immediately be prompted with the values extracted by the computer vision from the engineering drawing. The user will be able to review and edit these values if there are any discrepancies. The user will then be presented with a simulation of the trench pictured in the engineering drawing. To continue, the user must click across the graph at the ground elevation. This is made simpler by following the dotted line in the underlying engineering drawing. Now the user can exit the simulation window and the software will use this user-input to generate the final shoring configuration. Once the simulation window is exited, a new window opens showing the ground level & trench floor, the location of all crossing utilities in the trench, and optimal placement of shoring.