A new feature implemented in the latest Plex-Earth 2025 is site areas. What is a site area? You define the boundaries of your site and then you get all the available geospatial data for it in just one place. Let's explore the capabilities of this feature further.
Create Site Area
To create a site area, you can either use the respective ribbon button or select the respective button on the site area tab on the Collection Manager.
Define Site Area Limits
After proceeding you will be prompted to define your Site's area. For an empty ungeoreferenced drawing, you will be asked to either use Lat, and Long coordinates or copy a Google Earth element from Google Earth.
If you are already working with a coordinate system, except for copying a Lat, Long locations: you can clarify the limits of your area with the following options:
- By Google Earth: copy any Google Earth element
- By Point: select a point in your drawing
- By rectangle: select a rectangle in your drawing
- By Polygon: select a closed polyline in your drawing
- By Route: select a center line in your drawing
Keep in mind that in the case of closed polylines, rectangles, routes, and closed Google Earth objects, like polygons, the site area limits are defined directly. In case of points, you will encounter an extra step.
You will need to define the zoom level (resolution) desired for your site area. You will have available a preview of your drawing to check. You select + to zoom further or - to zoom out. A low-resolution preview is available on your Collectin manager which can be turned on or off. If the "Auto-Update Imagery Preview" is ticked, every time you zoom in or you zoom out, the drawing preview is updated. The Lat/Long details, the address, and the total area are also displayed. After we are ready, we can accept the site area and proceed.
Site Area List
After accepting the site area, it will appear on the site area list on the collection manager. We can have multiple site areas on this list. Before editing a specific site area, let's explore the Site Area tools.
On the top of the list the following tools are available:
1: add a new site area
2: hide all site areas
3: show/hide imagery
4: show/hide contours
5: show/hide side area bounds
6: select the object in the drawing
7: delete the selected site area
There are also tools for each site area displayed.
8: hide the respective site area
9: zoom to site area
10: rename site area
11: when locked, the site area auto-restores. When unlocked, it disables auto-restore
Site Area Editing
General Edit Tab
On the top of the editor, the following tools are available:
1: hide/show site area
2: zoom to site area
3: send to back/bring to front site area
4: rename site area
5: delete site area
6: close site area
7: transform site area
Regarding transform, the following options are available: Align, Move, Rotate, Scale, and Undo.
If you apply a transformation to your site area, you can also apply this change to the whole drawing.
If you do so, the applied transformation will apply to your applied coordinate system, and also all Plex-Earth objects will be placed accordingly.
Then your coordinate system will appear as modified.
Site Area Tabs
There are four available tabs in the Site Area editing window:
1) Explorer
2) Imagery
3) Terrain
4) Historical
Explorer Tab
In this tab, you will be informed about the size of your area but most importantly for all the premium contextual data available there.
Imagery Tab
Here you can create high-quality imageries from all the available providers for your site area.
Select and Add Imagery for the imagery wizard to appear
You add multiple images for your site area, which will be displayed in the imagery tab.
To further edit your images, just click on the Edit button right in the image list.
Terrain Tab
In the terrain tab, you can enable contours from Google Elevations to check your site area's morphology.
After enabling contours, a terrain model appears. You have some tools available on this page. You can show or hide the imagery of your site area underneath your contours. You can also use the inquiry functionality to click on any terrain point to get info about position, elevation, slope, and direction.
You can also move to the contours tab where you can edit the minor and major intervals as well as the colors of your contours.
You can also add labels to the existing contours and also adjust their text height and color.
You can click on the Edit button in the top right corner for more editing tools.
Historical Tab
In this tab, you can add historical datasets from Airbus and Maxar.
Select to fetch the image and then pick where your dataset should be centered.
You can fetch multiple datasets by selecting the add date button.
You can add the dates you fetch here as imagery from the imagery tab after you've fetched them here.
You can use the location button to change the center point of your datasets.
Keep in mind that the size of the imagery you get depends on the resolution of its dataset.
If you want to create imagery from one of your datasets, select it in the list and select the button Add as Imagery. Then you can create a mosaic image of it and keep it in your drawing. You will be prompted to select the desired resolution (the one marked with the star is the best option) and you will be informed of the credit consumption. You can have the Edit Tile selection checked for further customization of your image.
Site area is a comprehensive tool to have all your geospatial data for your site at the same place, to make your design decisions easier.
We hope you have found this introduction on how to use Plex-Earth Site Areas, helpful. Feel free to contact us at support@plexscape.com for any questions you may still have.
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Compatibility includes:
AutoCAD Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020
Civil 3D® Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020
AutoCAD Architecture Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020