Site Context

First Time Use of Site Context

You must apply for an account at MapBox and create a public token (API key) that will allow you to use the Site Context app.

• The first time you open Site Context app you are presented with instructions about how to generate a key and use it to generate site context (see Figure 1)

• Open Mapbox using the link provided in the Open Mapbox button

• Sign up for an account, or if you already have one, go to the next step

  • You only need to do the free “pay-as-you-go” account which does not require a credit card to use

• Open your account page on Mapbox

• Create a public key (no secret scopes, which are generally used to read/write account information) [see Figure 2 and Figure 3]

  • This key is stored locally on your machine

    • This means that each time you want to use site context on a new computer, you should re-enter the API key on that computer.

    • It serves as a security measure for you, as we do not store your API key

• The key only needs Styles:Tiles from Public Scopes (see Figure 3)

• Give it any name as it’s not important for Fuzor’s systems to know the name of the key

• Generating site context can range from 100-1000 API calls, and you get 200,000 free calls per month, so you can generate over 100 site contexts per month for free

  • You can see exactly how many you’re generating and have left on the accounts page of Mapbox (see Figure 4)

Instructions for Use

• Open Site Context app from Coordination or Construction

• Enter the address or the lat/long of the site (partial addresses are generally accepted)

  • Suggestions will populate as you type, which you can click to autopopulate your address

  • Depending on where you live, you may not get an address populating, in which case you can use Google to access your latitude and longitude

    • See Section At End of Page (Google Lat/Long)

• Your map will load into the UI

• You can swap between satellite and street view

• You can swap between elevation and flat

• You can also generate the site context model from this point

• Click Generate and the model will load

• Once you have loaded a model, you won’t have access to Site Context app in that file anymore

  • This is to prevent accidental overwriting of site context, which generates more API calls from your free token and can limit the usage per month

• You should make site context the first thing you load into a file

• You can’t delete a site context once it’s in a file

  • Simply open a new cache file and start over if you generated an incorrect address

Expanding Site Context

• Your model loads with a 3D marker to point out the exact address, and 4 arrows to allow you to expand your site context model in case the default size is not big enough

• Click an arrow to see that a second tile loads in next to this site context

• These arrows will go away when you excavate or save and reload the file, which means if you save and reload before you are done expanding the site, then you will have to generate a new one at the same location

• You can delete the building models without issue

• You can also hide all of the buildings using Visibility Override by finding the Fuzor Site Context group, expanding it, and hiding the Site group

Site Context Tools - Site Leveling and Smoothing

• To adjust elevation by either flattening or smoothing, you can select the site context model

• Here you have options in the Element properties to do Site Leveling (flatten by area) or use the Smooth Brush (create smoother sloping for hills/sharp edges)

• Click the Site Leveling tool

  • You will be drawing similar to zones here, by clicking points so that the area you create will be flattened

  • You can select a height for this to be at initially, and you can also adjust the slider later to your preferred elevation

• Click a minimum of 3 points in the scene

• Finalize by hitting ESC

• The section is flat

  • Adjust the Height slider or enter a number for preferred height

• Click the Terrain Smooth tool

• Click and drag around the outer edges of the elevation change you made with Site Leveling or around hills/sloping that needs to be smoothed out

  • We’ve found that dragging from a lower elevation to a higher elevation tends to create acceptable slopes

  • The direction you drag the smooth brush well affect the outcome of the smoothing

• You’ll see the edges begin to smooth and slopes forming

• You can adjust the size and strength of the brush as well for more accuracy, smaller brush and lower strength means more accuracy but slower brushing

  • We’ve found that for smoothing out site leveling, it’s best to go high strength with a wide radius, but the smaller sizes are available for more fine control

Misc. Info

• The arrows to expand the tiles of site context will disappear on save and reload, or after creating an excavation on the site. This is to prevent accidental undoing of work, and features like site leveling/smoothing will be undone by generating more tiles.

• Site Leveling and Smooth brushes will disappear from Site Context model after making an excavation on it

Google Lat/Long

You may not be able to see your address populate, especially if the address you’re working with doesn’t exist yet or in some cases where international locations won’t populate.

1. Open Google maps (http://google.com/maps )

2. Type in your address - or - if one doesn’t exist yet type in a nearby address

3. Click on the map where your site is or will be

   1. Alternatively just right click and context menu appears with lat/long which you can click to copy to clipboard

4. Blurb opens at bottom of page which you can click and drag to copy

5. Open Site Context app in Fuzor

6. Paste (CTRL + V) your copied lat/long into the Project Address field

   1. It will auto populate lat/long fields and start generating a map!

• Replace the slow and costly infraworks models with our version that comes free with Fuzor license and won’t slow down your framerates, unlike those heavy FBX models typically used for this.

• Have direct control over the model elevation.

• Instantly provide a model for site context and excavation.

• More realistic excavation model.

• Can see the actual roads/nearby buildings to get an idea of the lay of the land.