What is a Site Area?
Site Area is a new functionality implemented in Plex-Earth, which helps you gather all the available data for your project area in the same place. This way, you define the area of your project, and you can have all data offered from Plex-Earth, such as imagery, terrain, and historical and recent imagery. The Site Area tool is for you if you need all the data available for your area to have all the information in the same place to make decisions about your design.
1. Georeference and Create Site Area
How to Create a Historical Imagery Mosaic
Create and Edit a Site Area
1. Georeference and Create Site Area
Apply the appropriate coordinate system for your site area, as described here. If you start without applying a georeference, you will be prompted to apply one before proceeding.
Locate the Create Site Area command on the Plex-Earth ribbon to start.
2. Define Site Area Limits
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
A preview of your Site Area appears to help you set the site boundaries.
Keep in mind that in the case of closed polylines, and closed Google Earth objects, like polygons, the site area limits are defined directly.
For Rectangles, you will need to confirm the area.
If you select Route, you will be asked about the width of your area as well.
If you select Point, you will encounter an extra step. You will need to define the zoom level (resolution) desired for your site area. You will have a preview of your drawing to check. You select + to zoom further or - to zoom out.
Then you need to pick a name for your Site Area. You can either leave the automatic naming (Site 1, 2, 3, etc), type yours, or click below to add the address of the Site.
After naming, the Site Area Editor opens on your Collection Manager.
3. Site Area Editor
Site Area Editor has two parts: the up one (red) with editing tools for the Site Area and the down one (green), which contains multiple tabs to acquire data for your site. In this part, we will explain the Editing tools. The second part will be explained in the Site Area Data part.
Let's analyze the Editing Tools:
Name
- On the Top Left Corner, the name of the Site Area appears.
General Editor Tools
- T: Rename Site Area
- Bin: Delete Site Area
- X: Close Site Editor
Site Area Tools
- Hide/Show: Hide or Show Site Area
- Zoom: Zoom to Site Area
- Send to Back/Bring to Front: Adjust the draw order of the Site Area
Preview Info
- Information about the Preview Image (Provider, Zoom Level)
Site Area Transformation Tools
The transform button is collapsible. The following options work as the respective commands of CAD.
- Align
- Move
- Rotate
- Scale
- 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.
This modification of the coordinate system will take effect on all objects you will import using Plex-Earth afterward.
If you apply this transformation after you have imported objects with Plex-Earth such as images, terrain models, etc, it will take effect only for the images or terrain data of the respective Site Area, and all the objects inserted after with Plex-Earth.
This modification cannot apply to drawing objects already existing in your drawing, you will have to move them manually. More info on that topic can be found in Transform Coordinate System or Other Applied Georeference via Plex-Earth
4. Site Area List
The site area will appear on the site area list on the collection manager. We can have multiple site areas on this list.
Let's explain the Site Area List tools.
General List Tools
These tools will be explained from left to right.
-
Plus: Add a new site area
-
Eye: Hide/Show all site areas
-
Image: Hide/Show imagery for all site areas
-
Contours: Show/Hide contours
-
Bounds: Show/Hide side area bounds
-
Select Object: Select the selected(s) site area as a drawing object in the drawing
-
Bin: Delete the selected(s) site area
Specific Site Area Tools
These tools apply to each Site Area.
- Hide/Show: Hide or Show Site Area
- Zoom: Zoom to Site Area
- Send to Back/Bring to Front: Adjust the draw order of the Site Area
- Lock: When locked, the site area auto-restores when the drawing opens and Plex-Earth starts. When unlocked, it disables auto-restore.
Specific Site Area Info
- Name of the Site Area
- Address
- Area covered
Edit
- Opens Editor for the chosen Site Area
Site Area Data
There are four available tabs in the Site Area editing window:
- Explorer Tab
- Imagery Tab
- Terrain Tab
- Historical Tab
1. Explorer Tab
In this tab, you find the following info:
- Area Info: the total size of your site area
- Lat/Long: the geographical coordinates of your site Area
- Address: the address of your site area
- Recent Imagery info: information about the most recent imagery available on our data (provider, date, time). You can access it in the Historical Tab.
- Premium Imagery info: In case premium imagery is available for your area, you will see the available providers here. You can access them in the Imagery Tab.
2. Imagery Tab
In this tab, you can create imagery mosaics for your Site Area.
Press the Select and Add Imagery for the providers list to appear.
When finished, the mosaic will appear under the Imagery Tab.
You can use the plus button to add more mosaics. You can also use the Edit button to proceed with editing each one of your images.
For more information about mosaic and imagery editing, check here.
3. 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, the base elevation, 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 select the More Tools option to open this terrain model in the Terrain Editor for more terrain editing options as described here.
4. Historical Tab
In this tab, you can access historical datasets from Airbus and Maxar to check how your area evolves through time and monitor changes.
The orange button will fetch the most recent dataset available, but you can pick the Find more dates button if you need another date.
The dataset fetched will appear under the historical tab.
You can choose the Add Date button to add more dates from the dataset list.
Then all the dates picked will appear in a list. Click on any of them to view it.
If you want to see a place in your Site Area in more detail -especially if it is a large one, use Focused View.
With Focused View, you select a point in your drawing (or using Lat/Long) where you will insert a historical dataset.
After picking your point, a focused view, with the maximum zoom level provided will be added to your list.
How to Create a Historical Imagery Mosaic
If you want to create a mosaic image using a historical dataset, you need to first add it to the historical tab. After adding it, you go back to the Imagery Tab and select Add Image, and the respective providers are now available.
Then select Next, to choose the specific dataset you want to create a mosaic from.
We hope that you have found this tutorial on Understanding Site Area in Plex-Earth: A Complete Guide, 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
BricsCAD Pro: V25, V24 , V23 , V22 , V21