Each guide explains what a plate computes and what it does not. Read them before you use the tool, or when a plate looks odd and you want to know why. They contain the numbers we actually measured and the traps we actually fell into.
Order and principles, and which parts automation takes over.
Why the default set is composed the way it is; the questions each plate answers.
Missing buildings, grey unknowns, fewer panels in some cities, radius, compute times, files, SketchUp, licensing.
How the sun-path diagram works, the 3D shadow model, changing date and hour.
Shadows accumulated every ten minutes. True solar time, the criteria shown, the design we discarded, and why it is not a shadow study.
Sixteen-sector observed frequencies and airflow between buildings (LBM). Grid, domain, and how it differs from a wind assessment.
Weather, wind, shade and ground cover folded into a felt temperature. The 8 m canopy assumption and the known biases.
Bands at 5·10·15·25%, the 50 m smoothing and what it hides, and why it is not a survey.
Lot area in five bands. Where US parcels come from, the count-versus-area trap, the ownership caveat.
NAIP near-infrared, NDVI, the offset that turned the Hudson into forest, and an 86% recall check against the NYC tree census.
Layer structure, recolouring, layout and print resolution, DXF.
Format differences, how the colour mode carries into the file, opening in SketchUp, and which buildings are missing.
Every dataset behind the US edition, its publisher, and measured coverage by city.
Tax-lot polygons with year built and land use, and how to use them.
Level 3 assessors' parcels for Boston, Cambridge, Worcester and the rest of Massachusetts.
How the point-based assessment roll is joined to parcel polygons.