SiteLens is a tool for construction surveyors. It takes an architect's building grid and the city's published control points, solves the coordinate transformation that ties them together, and lets you import, visualize, convert, and export survey points in a 3D scene over real terrain.
The problem it solves
On a construction site, several coordinate worlds collide:
- The architect designs in a building grid — lettered and numbered gridlines with offsets, anchored to nothing in the real world.
- The city publishes control points in a projected system (northing/easting).
- The survey crew measures new points in the field and needs them in coordinates the machine and the drawings agree on.
SiteLens is the bridge. It computes the tie between the building grid and real-world coordinates, then keeps every point consistent across all systems.
The workflow
- Create a project for the site and choose its coordinate reference system and display units.
- Define the building grid and enter the city control points.
- Solve the transform — SiteLens fits the grid onto the control points and reports the residuals so you can judge the tie.
- Import surveyed points from your machine's CSV or LandXML export.
- Visualize everything in 3D over terrain, with the architect's DXF drawing overlaid and points organized by category.
- Convert and export coordinates between systems and units as needed.
Core principles
- Your elevations are the source of truth. Terrain is a visual backdrop, not survey-grade data.
- Everything is stored in meters internally. Units are converted only when you import, view, or export — and feet are always labeled.
- Precision math is deliberate. The transform and projections run in a Rust geo-core, not in the browser.
Continue to Getting Started to set up your first project.