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Auto-Generated Inspection Chamber Sketch
Auto-Generated Inspection Chamber Sketch

Have the app draw the layout of an inspection chamber for you

Jimmy avatar
Written by Jimmy
Updated over a week ago

The standard manhole chamber sketch can be used to create diagrams of inspection chambers quite effectively, but doing this still requires some time from the user to add all the components to the diagram and position them properly.

The nature of inspection chambers, and the fact they're almost always rectangular means that it's possible to give the app enough information for it to be able to draw a to-scale diagram all by itself.

You still have to trigger the app to create the sketch, but this only takes one tap of a button.

This YouTube video shows how it works, or read on to dive into more detail...

Required Data

To be able to draw an inspection chamber, the app needs to know details about the chamber itself, and the ducts that are inside it.

Chamber Data

  • chamber depth in metres

  • chamber width and length in millimetres

Duct Data

  • face

  • shape (circular or rectangular)

  • dimensions in millimetres

  • distance from top of face to top of duct in metres

  • distance from left side of face to centre of duct in millimetres

Why the Different Units?

Lots of surveyors measure lots of things in lots of different ways, but we need to maintain some type of convention in the apps

So seeing as levels are generally calculated in metres, and we do calculations based on those like invert levels for pipes, all depths in the app are expected to be in metres.

A lot of other measurements are for smaller values like pipe diameters, cover dimensions etc and so anything other than a depth is expected to be in millimetres.

The inspection chamber sketch expects its paramaters to stick to this convention, which is why there are a mixture of units.

If you'd prefer to work in different units, custom apps are available that can have different labels, or maths operations can be done to convert between units when it comes to creating PDF templates for export.

Generating the Sketch

Firstly, create a new record and choose "Inspection Chamber" as the type.

Enter the chamber details.

Add the details of the ducts on each face.

Tap on the button to generate the sketch. If your device is in portrait mode, it will ask you to rotate to landscape.

View the Sketch

Tapping on the Generate IC Sketch button will make the app draw the inspection chamber sketch to the correct scale and dimensions based on the data you entered.

By viewing the sketch, surveyors can check it looks correct before exporting the data.

Similar to the location sketch, a toolbar is added over the top of the diagram with some buttons.

You can toggle the toolbar to show and hide using the chevron button on the left hand side.

Using the Compass

It's a common convention to assign numbers to faces with 1 being north facing. If data is entered without noting which is the most northerly face, you can use the compass to update the diagram and shift the ducts round until the alignment is correct.

Toggle the compass on and off by tapping on the button with the padlock, and rotate round where you're stood to trigger updates to the sketch based on the direction of the device.

Save The Sketch

Once you're happy with the the diagram, tap on the tick button at the top right to save the inspection chamber sketch.

Making Changes

Once the sketch is saved, tapping on the Generate IC Sketch button will take you back the sketch as it was last generated.

If you make some changes to the underlying data, the sketch won't automatically update in the background.

To modify the diagram with the new data, open the sketch and tap on the Refresh button in the toolbar.

This will trigger the sketch to get redrawn from scratch, and will incorporate the updated information.

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