> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aliengh.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Site

> From an address to a site model you can design on, and the base the building suite stands on.

No more redrawing the site, the neighbours and the roads off council maps. Type the address and the site arrives to scale. Then set the project's base once, and every building component follows it.

| Component | What it's for |
| - | - |
| [Site map (VIC)](#site-map-vic) | Type a Victorian address. |
| [Site base](#site-base) | Where the project sits: the base point, the grid rotation, true north, the AHD datum and the drawing scale, as one site record every building component reads. |

***

## Site map (VIC)

`vic_site_map`

Type a Victorian address. Get the lot, the neighbours, the roads, terrain and contours, 3D streets, trees and building massing, to scale and ready to design on, plus the planning zone and overlays.

**Cost:** Free (open data, no key).

### Inputs

| Input | Type | On the component | Default | What it does |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| `address` | Text | Text, with address suggestions | `201 Napier Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065` | Victorian street address (suggestions as you type), or lat,lon |
| `radius` | Number | Slider 10–300 | `60` | context around the site (m) |
| `assumed_height` | Number | Slider 0–60 | `7` | height for buildings with no known height (m); 0 = leave them flat |
| `refresh` | Boolean | Button | — | fetch again instead of using the cache |
| `terrain` | Boolean | Switch | on | ground from LiDAR / Vicmap elevation; buildings, streets and trees sit on it |
| `streets` | Boolean | Switch | on | 3D streets: carriageways, kerbs, footpaths and nature strips in the road reserves |
| `trees` | Boolean | Switch | on | trees with measured height and canopy (metro Melbourne + Ballarat, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Sale) |
| `contour_step` | Number | Slider 0–10 | `1` | contour interval (m); 0 = no contours |

### Outputs

| Output | Type | What it gives you |
| - | - | - |
| `site` | list of Curve | lot boundary |
| `lots` | list of Curve | neighbouring lots |
| `roads` | list of Curve | road centrelines |
| `road_names` | list of Text | one per road curve |
| `footprints` | list of Curve | building footprints |
| `buildings` | list of Brep | extruded footprints |
| `zone` | Text | the planning zone, e.g. NRZ1 |
| `overlays` | list of Text | planning overlays, e.g. HO180 |
| `info` | Text | summary, sources and caveats |
| `area` | Number | site area (m2) |
| `ground` | Mesh | terrain |
| `contours` | list of Curve | at whole multiples of contour\_step (m AHD) |
| `datum` | Number | AHD height of z = 0 (m) |
| `carriageway` | Mesh | road surface |
| `footpath` | Mesh | paved verge |
| `nature_strip` | Mesh | grass verge and medians |
| `kerb` | Mesh | kerb faces |
| `canopy` | Mesh | tree crowns |
| `trunk` | Mesh | tree trunks |

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How it works">
    * Geocodes with Vicmap's address index (Nominatim as fallback; a match on only the street or suburb is refused).
    * Lot from Vicmap Property; neighbouring lots from Vicmap Parcel; roads from Vicmap Transport.
    * Buildings from the Overture Maps buildings archive (PMTiles, read by HTTP range), OpenStreetMap Overpass as fallback. Height: Overture height, else storeys x 3 m + 1 m, else the tallest building part, else assumed\_height.
    * Terrain: Geoscience Australia 5 m LiDAR DEM where it covers the site, gaps filled from the statewide Vicmap Elevation 10 m DEM; surface models (Terrarium, Open-Meteo) only if both fail. A 2 m grid, at most 201 x 201 points.
    * Streets: each centreline gets a cross-section from its road class, fitted to the road reserve measured from Vicmap road casement polygons (property line to property line). Carriageway, median, nature strip, footpath; lanes (reserve \<= 7.5 m) wall to wall with no kerb; verges paved in central/commercial zones (CCZ, CDZ, ACZ, C1Z, MUZ, DZ, PDZ). Bands and reserves are overlaid into planar regions, classified, meshed and draped on the ground; verges sit a 150 mm kerb above the road, with kerb faces between.
    * Trees: Vicmap Vegetation Tree Urban points with LiDAR height and canopy half-widths, modelled by shape: broad (clumps of lumpy low-poly blobs on a split trunk with limbs), columnar, eucalypt (open high crown), conifer (stacked cones) or palm (trunk and fronds), from the species where known (City of Melbourne) else from proportions, seeded per tree. Trees under 1.5 m get a height from their canopy; points inside a building footprint reading roof height are left out.
    * Geometry is in metres scaled to the model's units, centred on the site, Y = true north. z = 0 is the ground at the site centre (datum gives its AHD height). Curves stay flat at z = 0 for modelling; ground, buildings, streets and trees follow the terrain.
    * Fetched data is cached for 30 days in the temp folder (alien-cache/vic\_site\_map), each v2 layer on its own; refresh (a button) fetches again once.
    * Data is fetched for a context bucket (60, 120, 200 or 300 m) and trimmed to the radius, so sliding the radius within a bucket refetches nothing.
    * The address field suggests Victorian addresses while typing (Vicmap address index, about 0.1 s per lookup).
    * If Vicmap's ArcGIS property/parcel layers fail (as after a republish on 12 Oct 2026), the same layers are read from the open-data WFS and info says so.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Where the data comes from">
    * Vicmap Address, Property, Parcel, Transport, Planning, Elevation, Vegetation (State of Victoria, CC BY 4.0)
    * DEM of Australia from LiDAR 5 m (Geoscience Australia, CC BY 4.0)
    * Overture Maps buildings and OpenStreetMap (ODbL)
    * City of Melbourne urban forest (CC BY)
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Speed">
    * First fetch for an address 2-10 s (about 35 s seen in the CBD); about 1 s from the cache; a 240 m radius with streets about 6 s from the cache.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Limits of this version">
    * Not a Planning Property Report: confirm with VicPlan.
    * Microsoft ML building heights ran about 2.3 m low in inner Melbourne.
    * Tree data covers metro Melbourne, Ballarat, Shepparton, Wangaratta and Sale only.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Site base

`bim_site`

Where the project sits: the base point, the grid rotation, true north, the AHD datum and the drawing scale, as one site record every building component reads.

**Cost:** Free.

### Inputs

| Input | Type | On the component | Default | What it does |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| `name` | Text | Text field | `Project` | project name |
| `boundary` | list of Curve | Select in Rhino | — | site boundary, e.g. vic\_site\_map's site (optional; several lots are joined) |
| `origin` | Point3d | Click a point in Rhino | — | project base point (optional; else set by anchor) |
| `anchor` | Text | Dropdown | `corner` | where the origin goes when none is wired. One of `corner`, `centre`, `world origin` |
| `rotation` | Number | Slider -180–180 | `0` | project grid rotation (deg, CCW from world X); with align, turns the aligned grid further |
| `align` | Text | Dropdown | `off` | take the grid direction from the boundary. One of `off`, `long axis`, `longest edge` |
| `north` | Number | Slider -180–180 | `0` | true north (deg, CCW from world +Y; 0 for vic\_site\_map) |
| `datum` | Number | Slider -20–2000 | `0` | AHD (m) of model z = 0: wire vic\_site\_map's datum |
| `scale` | Text | Dropdown | `1:100` | drawing scale for the suite's annotation (levels, grids, symbols). One of `1:50`, `1:100`, `1:200`, `1:500`, `1:1000` |

### Outputs

| Output | Type | What it gives you |
| - | - | - |
| `site` | Text | site record: wire into the building components' site input |
| `plane` | Plane | project plane: at the origin, X along the grid |
| `boundary` | list of Curve | the joined site boundary |
| `arrow` | list of Curve | north point (true north; a PN tick when the grid is turned) |
| `marker` | list of Curve | project base point: circle, cross, X/Y axes, datum |
| `info` | Text | what happened: a summary, sources and notes |

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How it works">
    * Takes vic\_site\_map's site (several lots are joined) and datum.
    * Origin: a wired point, else the boundary's lower-left corner in project axes (anchor corner), its centroid (centre) or the world origin.
    * align takes the grid direction from the lot's long axis or longest edge; rotation turns it further.
    * Annotation across the suite is sized in paper mm at the site's drawing scale (1:50 ... 1:1000).
    * Outputs the project plane, a north point (with a PN tick when the grid is turned) and a base-point marker.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>


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