Sometimes large projects require basemapping that the budget for conventional survey and mapping can’t cover. Other projects receive approval as the full fury of winter arrives, setting back the survey schedule. Time or money constraints don't need to compromise your project's success. Performance-Based Mapping (PBM) may be the solution to your immediate basemapping needs.

This option can also be used to defer the cost of conventional surveying until the project gains support and data needed for design is required.

PBM tailors project basemapping to performance specifications developed by the project team members. Once referred to as the “cut and paste method,� new digital technology is making the task easier and more popular.

Depending on the accuracy and detail you need, it may be applicable on your project.

PBM is suitable when features being designed have less stringent design tolerances and require little or no relationship to vertical grade. Projects such as master plans, landscape plans, pressurized pipelines, and communications conduit lines don’t always need high-accuracy basemapping. These projects may only require plans showing general topographical features and having accuracy within several feet.

Before the digital technology was available, engineers, architects, and landscape architects used many kinds of mapping, such as United States Geologic Survey maps, county planning maps, and highway record drawings, for these projects. Maps were cut and pasted on boards to create a clean map for copying onto mylar, but it was not very versatile due to different scale and rotational factors.

With digital cutting and pasting, it is now possible to scan, digitize, merge, warp, and plot new PBM. Digital mapping is infinitely more versatile than hard copy mapping. The scale can be manipulated, the orientation on the drawing can be rotated, and features can be turned on and off with the click of the mouse.

Conventional survey and mapping provides accurate results but requires significant financial commitment and weather that cooperates with your time schedule. PBM is a less expensive option. Weather is not a concern because it relies on other sources, such as existing maps and databases, including GIS.

It is true that these digital wizardry tools take time and resources. However, the investment is small when compared to the cost of conventional survey and mapping. Our data shows that it is definitely worth considering the options.

PBM can be attractive when a deal depends on buy-in from investors and preliminary approvals from local authorities. Several large developers in Upstate New York recently deferred approximately $30,000 of field survey and mapping costs into the final design phase.

For one project, county planning mapping was used to create PBM for a 130-acre site. The concept plan was developed, rendered, and scanned for marketing to investors. The net cost for the mapping and the concept plan was under $5000, saving almost $20,000.

On another project, a 10-year old hand drawn mapping was scanned and used as PBM to create another concept plan. The plan was used to convey the developer’s ideas to NYSDOT as part of an application for a “break in access� onto a major state highway. The owner deferred field survey costs of nearly $15,000 until a team of investors was assembled. He gained the assurance that the project was approvable before he invested significant sums of money on field survey and preliminary design.

For situations when PBM is appropriate, you can accomplish the goals of your project while achieving great savings.

If you are interested in Performance-Based Mapping, contact Robert Goossen at (585) 334-1310, ext. 225, or rgoossen@fisherassoc.com.