What it is

The 3D Model is a photoreal, textured reconstruction of your site, wrapped in real photography from the flight. Surfaces are solid, so buildings, terrain and stockpiles read the way they do in person.

When to use it

• Presentations — spin the whole site on a screen in a meeting.
• Getting oriented — see how buildings, roads and terrain relate before you measure.
• Sharing — anyone can enjoy it, with no technical background.

For precise elevations, or to see through vegetation, use the Point Cloud. To measure areas and distances on a flat map, use the 2D Aerial Map.

How to open it

1. Open your project from your dashboard or your share link.
2. If the project has more than one flight, pick the date in the scan picker.
3. Click the 3D Model tab (the stacked-boxes icon).
4. It streams in: the whole site appears almost at once, a little soft, then sharpens where you look.

Some projects also carry the model as a single file. That one opens on the 3D Mesh tab (the box icon) and loads up front instead of streaming.

Getting around

The camera mode control (top-right of the viewer) switches how you move:

• Orbit — rotate around the site. Drag to spin, scroll or pinch to zoom, right-drag to pan. The default with a mouse.
• Earth — map-style touch, the default on touch-first devices. One finger pans, pinch zooms, a twist rotates, a two-finger swipe tilts.
• Fly — free flight with an on-screen joystick and look controls.
• Tripod — plant the camera in one spot and look around 360°.
• Walk — drop to eye level and stroll the site on foot.

Tips

• Phones: the streamed 3D Model runs in your phone's browser. The single-file 3D Mesh is too big for phone memory, so on a phone the project's own team gets a Download button instead.
• To re-center, switch back to Orbit and zoom out.
• Share links carry the camera position, so you can send someone this exact view.