MappSmith — Land & property builder

  • Can I move or change the words on the plaque?

    Yes. The builder places them on the tab (or along the bottom of a rectangle board), and in the Studio each line is ordinary text: drag it, retype it or delete it.

  • How do I draw the boundary?

    Type the address, a road or the town to find the place, and zoom in on the satellite view. Click each corner of the boundary in turn, then click the green first corner (or double-click) to close it. To fix it, drag a red corner; drag a faint dot in the middle of a side to add a corner; right-clic...

  • How do I make a map of my land?

    In the Layers panel, set Product to "Land or property". The land builder opens. Land: draw the boundary on the satellite map, drop in a boundary file, or try an example. Drop pins for the house, the barn or a heart. Look: Parcel shape, Stepped terrain, Framed, Engraved or Printed, and a finish. ...

  • How is the acreage worked out?

    From the boundary itself, on the true shape of the Earth (the WGS84 ellipsoid), so it should match the deed to within a fraction of a percent if the boundary is right. Cut-outs inside a boundary file come off it. Switch between acres and hectares under Details, or retype the line on the board in ...

  • My land is flat. Will the stepped look work?

    The steps follow the real ground, so flat land has little to step: the builder tells you how many metres of rise there are. Parcel shape or Framed read better on flat ground. Contour lines can still show the gentle slopes.

  • What do the looks give me?

    Parcel shape: the board cut to your boundary with a frame that follows it and the plaque on a tab underneath; contours, woods, fields and lanes burned in, the ponds cut through to a blue backer, the pins raised. Stepped terrain: the same outline with the ground built up in stacked sheets, one per...

  • Where do the woods, fields and ponds come from?

    From OpenStreetMap, round your land. Many farms have their woods and ponds mapped and fewer have their fields; anything missing simply is not drawn. Each can be switched off under Details.

  • Which boundary files can I use?

    KML and KMZ (Google Earth, onX, HuntStand and most county parcel viewers), GeoJSON, GPX (walk the fence line with your phone), and Shapefiles from the county GIS as a .zip with the .shp and .prj inside (or pick the .shp and .prj together). State Plane, UTM, Albers and Web Mercator grids are conve...