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Adding features

Features are the map objects Siter analyzes — facilities, support structures, boundaries, and any other geometry that participates in QD. This lesson focuses on the decisions you make at creation time. For the click-by-click flow, see Features → How to add a feature and Feature shapes → How to draw a new shape.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson you should be able to:

  • Pick the type code at creation rather than after the fact
  • Choose the right shape tool for the geometry
  • Verify the feature is on a QD-visible layer when it should be
  • Anticipate what's left to do after a feature exists

Pick the type code first​

The type code is the first decision the engine makes about a feature, and it gates which attributes are even available — see Calculator: Type codes. Set the type code at creation rather than after the fact: changing it later drops attribute values that no longer apply and falls back to defaults for any newly required attributes, which means rework.

Shape creation methods​

The feature dashboard's shape editor offers four ways to create or edit a shape — pick the one that matches your starting information.

MethodSub-optionsUse when
Digitize NewRectangle, Polygon, Polyline, CircleYou're drawing the shape freehand on the map against imagery or background reference
Place TemplateRectangle (sized to spec), Circle (radius to spec), Feature Copy (duplicate of another feature's shape), From WKT (paste a WKT and drop it)You have a known shape and want to place it at a clicked location
Known PositionFixed WKT (Geographic) for lat/long, Fixed WKT (Projected) for the project's projected coordinate systemYou have exact coordinates from a survey or external GIS — the shape lands at exactly those coordinates
ReshapeEdit Vertices, Nudge/Rotate, Translate, ResetYou're modifying an existing shape

Practical rules of thumb:

  • Drawing freehand against imagery → Digitize New
  • Standard-size structure (e.g., 60 × 30 ft magazine) at an approximate spot → Place Template > Rectangle
  • Same building shape repeated across multiple locations → Place Template > Feature Copy on each instance
  • Exact survey coordinates → Known Position > Fixed WKT
  • A road or other constant-width route → a path layout (New Layout > Path): draw the centerline and enter the width, and Siter builds the road polygon (see Path facilities)
  • Many copies of one facility, or a BLAHA → a layout (New Layout > Grid, Template, or BLAHA) instead of adding facilities one by one
  • Geometry exported as WKT from another GIS tool → Place Template > From WKT (drop at a clicked location) or Known Position > Fixed WKT (drop at the WKT's exact coordinates)

Different feature categories also favor different geometry types: magazines and operating buildings as polygons or rectangles; roads as paths; fences as polylines; pinpoint utilities as points; buffer-like features as circles.

Path facilities​

A path facility is a road drawn as a centerline with a width (entered in working units, 0.5 m to 500 m). Since v0.32 it's created as a path layout, not from the Shape tab: open New Layout > Path from the Layouts sidebar or the apps Add/Edit menu. Siter builds the polygon with square ends and rounded bends, and a road that loops or crosses itself keeps its infields as holes. Points to cover in class:

  • Path layouts are only available on projects whose map projection is in metres, such as a UTM zone
  • The saved facility is an ordinary polygon: it can take a front and custom segments, and a fronted category such as an ECM builds its faces as on any polygon
  • Reshaping the facility on the Shape tab doesn't change the path's centerline. Edit the road through Edit Layout so the polygon stays in step with it

Confirming the layer​

After drawing the feature, verify it landed on the layer you expected. The most common mistake is adding a feature while a background layer is the active layer — the feature appears on the map but is silent to analysis. See Adding layers for the failure mode and Changing a feature's layer to fix it.

After the feature exists​

Adding a feature is the start of feature data entry, not the end. Once the geometry exists, you still need to:

  • Set or confirm attributes — see Editing features
  • Enter explosives data if the feature is a PES
  • Assign a front if the type code requires one
  • Define relationships to other features

A freshly added feature with only geometry and a type code will not produce useful analysis until the rest of these are in place — and may land in Requires Analysis until they are.

Try it​

Add a feature using each shape tool to a QD-visible layer in a sandbox project. Confirm each lands on the active layer with the type code you picked. On a metre-projection project, draw a road with New Layout > Path, save it, then reopen it from the Layouts sidebar, change its Width, and save again to watch the polygon rebuild. Then deliberately switch the active layer to a background layer, add another feature, and run analysis. Confirm the background-layer feature produces no result — even though it is visually identical to its QD-visible cousins.