flow of materials used to mark road surfaces and other surfaces the utilities utilize one or more pressure sensors to monitor in line pressure of road marking material to determine the amount of material being applied electronic equipment receives signals from the pressure sensors temperature sensors and or additional monitoring equipment to generate an output indicative of an amount of material flow in a further arrangement the equipment generates an output indicative of a thickness of the read marking material as applied to a surface application_number US 201113020622 A description reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings which at least assist in illustrating the various pertinent features of the presented inventions though discussed primarily in relation to monitoring the application of thermoplastic melt it will be appreciated that the presented inventions are not so limited in this regard the following description is presented for purposes of illustration and description furthermore the description is not intended to limit the disclosed embodiments of the inventions to the forms disclosed herein consequently variations and modifications commensurate with the following teachings and skill and knowledge of the relevant art are within the scope of the presented inventions referring to fig1 an embodiment of the invention is shown that includes a generally cylindrical paint tank 12 that is disposed on a paint truck 10 in the present embodiment the paint tank 12 is a thermoplastic paint tank and further includes a furnace not shown for melting solid thermoplastic feed stock and various gas sources 16 e g propane tanks which the furnace uses to heat the thermoplastic feed stock in the paint tank a bead tank 14 is also on the paint truck 10 the paint tank 12 and bead tank are interconnected to.