Plotlay Open the app →
01 Site plan · real drawing, real aerial

Put the drawing
on the ground.

Pin any floor plan, site plan, PDF or DXF to aerial imagery, then measure it, mark it up and issue a scaled plan. No CAD licence. Take the same map to site on a phone to verify the asset register, and send the results straight into your GIS or Power BI.

Free in your browser. No card. Or just open the app.

The Lincoln Memorial main level plan, pinned in Plotlay onto 8 cm aerial imagery: every column of the drawing sits on the real colonnade; the chambers are traced and measured at 860 square metres. every column lands on the real colonnade pinned at the 4 terrace corners · RMS 0.03 m
Lincoln Memorial, main level plan (HABS DC-3, public domain) on the District of Columbia 2023 orthophoto, 8 cm (CC BY 4.0). Made in Plotlay. How →
In: PNG · JPG · PDF · DXF · CSV · XLSX · KML · SHP Out: scaled PDF · DXF · SVG Out: GeoJSON · SHP · KML · CSV · XLSX
02 Schedule of uses

What teams use it for

MarkUseHow it worksYou end up with
U1Drawings without CADTrace buildings, rooms, slabs and boundaries off the aerial or a pinned plan; every shape is dimensioned. Issue a plan at a true scale with your title block. No CAD licence, no training course.scaled PDF · DXF · SVG sheets
U2Reconcile old drawingsPin legacy and as-built PDFs or DXFs to today's imagery and see what has changed. Recolour linework, erase title blocks, cut a room out to its own layer.drawings that sit on the real ground
U3Verify the register on siteWork through a list on a phone: confirm assets where they are, record where they really are, mark what's missing, capture what isn't on the list. Scan the barcode or QR tag to open the asset; answer the questions set for its type. Photos, condition and ± accuracy on every record.an audited register, not a guess
U3aRaise the workFound a defect? Raise a corrective action or a request for extra work on the asset, the shape or the spot: type, priority, due date, photos. As many per asset as it needs, closed out with a note when done.an actions register with positions
U4Feed GIS and BIExport straight into ArcGIS or QGIS, or into Power BI, Tableau and Excel maps. Status, condition, level and accuracy are columns. A low-cost way into location analytics, without a GIS team.GeoJSON · SHP · KML · CSV · XLSX
U5Multi-storey buildingsBasement, ground and upper floors as levels. Copy a pinned plan to the next floor, swap in its drawing, and audit one floor at a time.level & floor height on every record
U6Floor plans from nothingStart a blank plan, or draw over the aerial. Walls at a set thickness, rooms with their areas, typed lengths and square corners, then beds, desks, kitchens and bathrooms at real sizes. On site, enter a room wall by wall from a tape or laser.a dimensioned plan, to scale
U7Smaller jobsRenovations, extensions, landscaping, fencing and paddocks: 130+ ready-made shapes with live areas and lengths, for quotes and permits.a measured plan in minutes

no CAD licence: it's a web page

◎ Issued for
03 Field capture · real screens

A work list on the phone

An example audit of the park furniture around the Lincoln Memorial: 20 benches, bins and fountains to verify and 3 entries with no coordinates to locate.

Work list on a phone: Bench 9 is 107 metres north-east of you; the big button says Head NE.
1 · Head there. Distance, direction and a guide line to where the register says it is. Nothing gets moved by accident.
At the bench: 1.6 metres away, Confirm here.
2 · Confirm it. At the spot, one tap records it verified, with ±3.1 m GPS accuracy and how far it moved (1.6 m).
The work list: to do, done, not found and skipped, nearest first.
3 · Work the list. Nearest first; done, not found and skipped kept separately. Crosshair, photo, extra points and new finds are one tap away.

Guide: verify an asset register on site →

04 Data out · GIS & BI

From the field to the dashboard

Every capture is a row your GIS or BI tool understands: coordinates, status, condition, how it was located and how accurate that was. Drop the Excel or CSV into Power BI and the map visual plots it; drop the GeoJSON into ArcGIS or QGIS and it's a layer.

  • Power BI, Tableau, Excel maps from the latitude/longitude columns. Colour by status or condition, slice by level or group.
  • ArcGIS, QGIS, MapInfo from GeoJSON, Shapefile or KML, in lat/long or MGA/UTM grid.
  • Joins back to your register on the asset ID; extra points carry their asset's ID too.

Guide: put field data in Power BI →

items.csv: real export from the example audit
idaudit_statusposition_sourcegps_accuracy_mmoved_m
BEN-09Verifiedgps3.11.6
BEN-08Not foundimport
BEN-07import
DF-05

+ latitude, longitude, group, condition, audited_at, audited_by, photos, level, elevation_m, extra_points, parent_id …

05 Method statement

From a PDF to a plan
someone can build from

  1. 105
    Find the site. Paste an address or a Google Maps link. Drop the drawing in. PDFs and DXFs open in the browser and nothing is uploaded.
  2. 205
    Pin three or four corners. Click a corner on the drawing, then the same corner on the aerial. Plotlay fits it and shows the error at every pin.
  3. 305
    Trace and measure. The wand outlines rooms; every shape shows its area and wall lengths, with ± where GPS was involved.
  4. 405
    Issue it. A scaled PDF with your title block, a DXF for the drafter, a shapefile for GIS. See a real sheet →
06 Schedule of fees · AUD

The tools are free. The cloud is what costs.

FreeProject passProTeam
Price$0$29once · 30 days$29per month, or $288 a year$99per month · 5 people
+$19 per extra person
Every tool & export●●●●
Projects in the cloud1for 30 daysunlimitedunlimited, shared
Read-only share links○●●●
Branded plan sheets○○●●
Team space, invites, roles○○○●
Open appGet a passGo ProStart a team
for regular work

Free

$0

Every tool and export · 1 cloud project

Open app

Project pass

$29 once, 30 days

Cloud projects and read-only share links for 30 days

Get a pass
FOR REGULAR WORK

Pro

$29 / month, or $288 a year

Unlimited cloud projects · share links · branded plan sheets

Go Pro

Team

$99 / month, 5 people, +$19 per extra person

Shared projects and registers · invites and roles

Start a team

Cancel any time and keep the plan to the end of the period. Prices in AUD, including GST where it applies. Need SSO, your own imagery or a private deployment for a larger organisation? Talk to us.

07 Guides · worked examples

Guides with real drawings and real data

Overlay a drawing on the aerialLincoln Memorial plan → 8 cm imagery, 0.03 m RMS Issue a plan without CADA 1:500 A3 sheet with a measurement schedule Verify an asset register on site23 benches, bins and fountains on a phone Field data into GIS and Power BICSV and GeoJSON straight onto a dashboard Multi-storey buildingsBasement, main level and attic as levels
08 General notes

Notes

  1. Nothing to install. Runs in a current browser on desktop, tablet or phone. Add it to a phone's home screen and it works offline; save a site's aerial before you go where the imagery's licence allows it.
  2. Accuracy. As good as the drawing and the imagery. Each pin shows its residual and the fit shows RMS; a few tenths of a metre is typical, a few centimetres with sharp imagery. Phone GPS is good to a few metres; connect an RTK receiver (Bluetooth or USB, in Chrome and Edge) and captures carry its fix quality and centimetre accuracy. Set an accuracy target and anything worse asks first.
  3. Files in. PNG, JPG, WebP, SVG, PDF (any page) and DXF. DXFs drawn in MGA/UTM place themselves. Lists from CSV, Excel, GeoJSON, KML. Save DWG as DXF first.
  4. Not a survey. Good for planning, quotes, facilities, asset registers and site work. Where the law wants a licensed surveyor, it still does.
  5. Your data. Stays in your browser unless you sync it. Synced projects are stored in Sydney; share links are read-only and can be turned off.
  6. All dimensions in metres unless noted otherwise. Do not scale from this web page.