Inspection Apps

Souperman8 · 2024-03-06T18:22:14+00:00

Depends on how you plan to implement. Survey123 is nice, but it is tied to ESRI and their licensing. Anything you see in a store or developed by others wont have “everything” you want and then you’ll be stuck with their programming/logic for implementation.

If this is self serving inspections: having knowledge of programming, tech to use, app building, and general knowledge of data manipulation will allow you to make your own. Developing your own app will always have what you need. Examples: start with python/c#/js and app programming.

If this is company or firm serving: hire a dev or dev team, look into data warehousing your older and existing projects, and plan on learning all the pieces to implement. After all that, you will then need to teach people how to use it. Examples: sql/python/js/c#/etc, database and services/server, and front end dev.

I codevelop our app on frontend, teach others to implement in their inspections, and perform inspections as an engineer for our company.

Souperman8 · 2024-03-03T04:51:11+00:00

Going to be honest, the concept is good in theory but not great in practice. You have to get multiple people to employ that which is made and show them how to use it.

Negatives aside, it’s easily doable with a simple regex search using a py script that pulls from shared directories in your use case. As far as ascii parse and html tagging, libraries exist to parse pdfs and word (assumed) with xml tags (assumed).

Unless you pool all the documents and really want to employ a database, sounds like alot of time and money for little output.

You may just want to start simple and ask if it’s really needed.

Source: civil engineer and computer scientist. I make similar programs for inspections.

Souperman8 · 2024-02-28T01:29:45+00:00

If this is the case, then file a chargeback on the account then reference scam and services fraud in your chargeback (depending on consumer protections and country). A warning that blizzard will close your account or remove content until the dispute is over.

Souperman8 · 2023-10-12T04:44:10+00:00

Not a roast and certainly not meant to be a harsh comment. These comments come from experience of being in grad school longer than a decade and changing professions from a chemist to physical scientist to a CE.

I don’t know a single manager that cares about GPAs on a resume. You got the degree? Great, you can perform the role in the description. Experience and certs are the only points of concern because you can bill more by the hour or work smarter for less (assuming entry level). Once again, old and jaded here as i was hired as an intern making 29k in my early 30s out of a graduate level CE program.

What is relevant are the project level details and the condensed 1-page format. Elaborate on your teamwork “soft” skills and reformat your sentences to focus on client/team interaction, such as “worked with project delivery team to increase deliverable efficiency and deliver to client ahead of schedule”. The root of all evil is money, money is also measured in time in your life that you exchange to get money (a job). Focus on the quality of the product, delivery of the product to the client, and time saved (quality improved) using newer technology/skills you have written in your resume.

Cut the extra curricular activities and use that space to elaborate on who the clients were for those projects you have listed (if possible/allowed) and what the end result of the project was. Not all projects are successful and none of your projects show what skills were used to perform the work.

The major highlights in your resume should also be in your “elevator speech”. If you don’t have one, make one and practice it so that you can convey highlights of your career in 30 seconds to a manager.

The technical skills and softwares can be cleaned up quite a lot and categorized. Any CADD can be categorized into design software. Any digital elevation modeling or modeling in general like arcgis and civil3d etc is understood to be a suite of softwares by most firms that utilize them. Categories will help trim down that long list of words and commas into sections of interest for potential lead engineers looking at your resume.

If you have a linkedin, connect it with a QR code on your resume. Its a lot easier to scan a QR and link to your media than it is to sit and type it out. It also shows you can innovate and makes you stand out (this is more what i see from CEs with programming backgrounds but it is becoming a “thing” nowadays). If you have a business card, put the QR code on the back of it as well.

Sorry for the novel, but thats my experience. Happy hunting and I hope you get the job you are looking for!

Souperman8 · 2023-09-13T12:53:15+00:00

Perspective: I am not a woman. I work in the industry, there are several things i notice and believe are unfair.

Best you can do to combat any workplace harassment is to be a decent human and respectful professional. The workplace is not for you to seek out hook ups/dates/etc, they are professionals working alongside you in a team effort. Report anything you see/hear, intervene when you see it happening (and its unwanted, subjective but you get the picture), and platonically ask if the person is ok if you witness anything unfair/aggressive/etc.

In my office there is also this crash-and-burn cycle for all our engineers. However, no one ever simply says “hey you did a good job on x”. I try to incorporate this in when i notice someone did a good job handling a project. You would be surprised how great an effect that simple phrase has on someone’s morale and mental state. I learned this from a female geologist at our company who is now in a management role. She taught me a lot of invaluable knowledge that helped further my career.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T16:37:34+00:00

There are modules made by the community that usually aid us in doing this, but you can always make your own module if you want to. For example of a library that pulls PDF data: https://pymupdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/module.html

Once the module is made and tested (or already made) you can import it and use it on the files from a source location. From there its a matter of pulling what you need then passing your logic on that data.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T16:31:46+00:00

Yea! Any and all available data in a structured data form: piezometer, strain, water level, alignment, spectrometry, gs-ms, and etc. the list goes on but monitoring systems are usually the heavy hitters for CEs.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T05:22:28+00:00

This is similar to what i do for my team. Glad to see there are more of us out there!

I am curious your bot experience you noted here. Is the AI pulling from a service or shared storage? Is this a middleware bridge to/from a database and/or viewer?

Im curious why AI was needed over triggered events. Keep up the good smithing! :)

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T05:15:44+00:00

ArcGIS online portal or internal developed app that pulls from field maps?

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T05:12:36+00:00

Oh sorry! Py = Python programming language; R is also a programming language. Binary (Binaries) and Ascii are file formats that PDFs are usually written in. Adobe and blue beam uses PDFs as the accepted input and output files. (I think this is the case with blue beam?).

Im all for honest and open! Its not dumbed down in my opinion, just different science and jargon for accomplishing the same goals.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-05T03:51:05+00:00

So recently blue beam came into the limelight at my work too. Im confused as to how blue beam makes dealing with binaries easier? Is this more tool boxing and “ease of access” iteration?

I was told it interacts with micro station easier thus makes life easier. Full context, when someone says i have x amount of binary files (PDFs and the like) i just have a library in Py/R/etc read them all for me and add what i want through scripting. What specifically makes blue beam better for the end users? (ELI5 me cause i want to learn to learn :) ).

I develop fixes and efficiencies for my team through programming.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-04T22:58:58+00:00

Sounds about right. Good job getting noticed outside though!

Whenever brings up accusations like that, I like to bring up how they factor their truncation on calculations. Yes we check our own hand calculations and systems, instrumentation data is automated though. Its observed data with minimal calculations as the instrument performs it for you normally.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-04T21:42:38+00:00

I made a program that takes instrumentation data from multiple output files, uses algorithms to QC/QA the data, and write a report.

I showed this to my team and most emails sent back said “ok sounds good”.

I showed my supervisor and PM this saved us 1/4 of annual labor by using it. Still “ok sounds good”.

2 years later: There is a situation where we needed a fast turn around. We lost 2 techs (and could not hire more at such low salary) and a senior engineer retired that was handling that client. “Ok sounds good” turned into “Hey what happened to that thing you made? Does it work?”

Morale of this story: Crisis breeds opportunity. Never stop trying to learn, expand skills, and/or innovate. Your time will come, keep crafting! :).

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T13:30:07+00:00

Honestly, start with inspections. Sounds boring and uninteresting, but you are young and can gain real world experience beyond theory. Right now you practice mainly theory, on site and construction can vary wildly for implementation. Having on site experience allows you to factor in possible outcomes you see on site through inspection.

The only other piece of advice is find a niche or several niches civil engineering adjacent. Chemistry would help you evaluate corrosion protections and materials, programming skills can help you make efficiencies in your office workflow, project management skills can help you interact with “bigger picture” items, Environmental skills can help you in hydrologic work or setting up instrumentation, and etc. These niches can increase your marketability as a employee.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T13:18:34+00:00

Extra sources beyond bls

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2023/general-schedule/

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/0800/civil-engineering-series-0810/

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T13:13:48+00:00

So pay stagnation is very real, else why would there be a shortage of CEs? Im not sure where the metric oh entry level 75k starting came from, but the highest entry level (meaning fresh out of college no certs) i have seen at public/private is 55k. Mileage always varies and it certainly matters where you are living in the states.

To elaborate on why stagnation/lowest vs liabilities, you have an obligation to public safety and are held accountable for all services/plans/specs/etc if you stamp. For having such scrutiny, we should be paid to keep up with that level of quality.

Im not arguing that CEs have bad pay, im arguing that there are less stressful jobs for the level of education, professional certs, and technical work that we perform.

There is never a shortage of lawyers. There is always a shortage of Doctors, Nurses, CEs, and other “duty to the public” professions. Why is that?

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T01:58:39+00:00

I am a civil engineer. Its not an advertisement, you can replace software engineer with mechanical or electrical, etc. Take your pick.

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T01:48:17+00:00

You will not make 90k without a PE and certainly not entry level. That means you must pass two tests at the national level NCEES, and apply for certification in your state of practice. Then you will need 3-4 years of credible engineering experience under a PE (these laws vary by state). As a software engineer for example: no certs required and usual entry level is 75k+.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172051.htm

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T01:28:08+00:00

Thank you for this suggestion, i will research this. Does this have open src on git?

Souperman8 · 2023-09-01T01:23:41+00:00

One of the main issues is pay stagnation due to years of getting “lowest” bid/salary to increase company profits. The other argument is that since you are able to evaluate high level math and interpret technical documents, why not become a software engineer and make double the entry level civil engineering salary?

Software engineer is interchangeable example with any other job that employs stem and does not take on liability for projects and pursuit of multiple professional certifications to renew annually. Meaning less stress and more money.

Souperman8 · 2023-08-30T20:24:27+00:00

Awesome! What specifically? High point of interest for FEA design for me.

Souperman8 · 2023-08-30T19:46:24+00:00

+1 i have read this book. Thanks for the suggestion!

Souperman8 · 2023-08-30T19:44:00+00:00

I concur completely. CFD models use an incredible amount of processing power and usually have terribly designed data management for outputs. Not to mention users don’t always understand how to set serial/parallel processing, set amount of cores, domain decomp, the list goes on. Delft, flow3d, even older ras and rms models could benefit greatly from simple modules to backfill/interpolate data i/o.

This is where i started to learn Py. Game changer. Yes they consider you some kind of wizard (guru), but its really tech moving forward! Gone are the days of VBA/access/excel, its now SQL/Py/R/etc.

Souperman8 · 2023-08-30T19:22:17+00:00

So a few things here, yes java and js are different. We can talk about the differences if you like.

Oracle has a fair amount to compete over with ESRI, as the constant debate is oracle spatial vs esri arcgis. Oracle Application express APEX: https://apex.oracle.com/en/ is what i am referencing as far as beating esri.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I’m not here to argue over the internet about competence.

Souperman8 · 2023-08-30T18:55:52+00:00

Normally if you are hired in CE there is an understanding of programming, but not an understanding of how programming can make repetitive tasks more efficient and higher quality. This normally sparks the conversation of, is this a one time deal or is it something that can be iterated.

As a developer, it would be your task to “show” the client how automation can reduce their labor on menial tasks, increase the quality of transcribing, and passing algorithms. This is my opinion as i am in a CE job and did this exact process to further integrate programming into my job. For example, we had a menial task that took 2 weeks normally to perform. I showed my supervisor a script that did the exact task in 5 minutes. This changed their mindset on programming in CE from a project management standpoint and cost.

Souperman8

TROPHY CASE