Cable Tracing

Cable tracing in Katapult Pro involves connecting wire inputs between pole and midspan photos to create a complete visual representation of your cable infrastructure. This process allows you to track individual cables as they run from one pole to the next, ensuring accurate documentation of your entire network. The cable tracing process serves three important purposes: it enables more efficient annotations, impacts make-ready decisions, and affects pole loading analysis.

We'll  look at two ways to cable trace in Katapult Pro. 

The first way to begin tracing cables is to select and trace one cable at a time. This is useful when needing to trace just a few cables into adjacent spans, such as deadends at intersections. 

The process can be broken down as follows:

1. Press tilde (~) to start the trace routine. Tilde is the key next to the number 1 or below ESCAPE on your keyboard. You should not hold SHIFT as you select it. 

2. Once the trace routine has been initiated, click on the marker you want to start tracing in the original photo. You will notice the yellow highlight around your selected marker. It's a good idea to select more than just the wire if it's nested on an insulator or arm (click on the arm or insulator photo input).

3. Click at the correct height for the selected cable in each subsequent photo, completing the trace from the pole, through the midspan photo(s), to the adjacent pole. 

Once the trace has been completed, you'll notice the company and cable type attributes carry from the original selected marker. Please note that all wire markers in each photo should also be highlighted yellow, confirming that the wires are connected in each photo. 

Finally, repeat the process for each additional cable that needs traced and connected in the span. Be sure to zoom in enough on each photo to accurately place wires.