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Placement analysis

Placement analysis answers a "what if we put a facility here?" question without touching the real project. You create a named placement analysis, describe the candidate facility — type, explosives, attributes, relationships — position it on the map, and Run it. Siter calculates the candidate's arcs and required distances against the existing project and draws them alongside the regular analysis, so you can judge a site before committing a single real feature.

Learning objectives

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

  • Create and configure a placement analysis for a candidate facility
  • Run it and read its calculation results and arcs
  • Keep several placements and compare them on the map
  • Recognize when a placement has gone stale and needs a re-run

What placement analysis is — and isn't​

The point of placement analysis is to evaluate a candidate without the add-feature / run / look / move / run-again loop, and without polluting the project with throwaway features.

It is not a live ghost you drag around while arcs update frame-by-frame, and you do not "convert" it into a real feature when you're done. A placement analysis is its own saved object on the project: you configure it, run it, and read the result. It sits next to the real project analysis as a separate what-if. If you decide the site works, you add the real facility the normal way (Adding features); the placement analysis stays as the record of the study.

This means placement analyses persist. They survive reloads, they carry a status and a last-run date, and you can keep several on a project at once.

Opening the Placement Analyses sidebar​

  1. In the left sidebar header, click the menu (mode chooser) icon
  2. Choose Placement Analyses

The sidebar lists every placement analysis on the project. Each row shows the placement's name, a status chip (Queued, Running, Succeeded, Failed, Canceled), its last run date, and an eye icon that toggles its arcs on the map.

Creating and configuring a placement​

  1. Click New Placement Analysis
  2. In the dialog, give it a Name. Optionally use Copy symbols from to start from another placement's arc styling instead of the defaults. Click Create
  3. The new placement is selected automatically and its results footbar opens at the bottom of the screen
  4. Position the candidate on the map and give it the shape the real facility would have
  5. Open the Placement Feature tab and work through its sub-tabs:
    • Categories — the candidate's facility type, per criteria
    • Explosives — NEW by hazard division
    • Attributes — criteria-specific attributes (protective construction, contents, posture, …)
    • Faces — the candidate's analysis faces (a face has no geometry of its own; the type code's segmentation rule determines them)
    • Relationships — add related facilities directly, or assign the candidate to operating-line groups and click build to resolve its relationships from the project's operating-line matrix. This only affects this placement feature, never the real project
  6. Click the save icon to persist your changes to the placement feature

The richer and more honest the configuration, the more trustworthy the result. Default attributes and a guessed NEW give arcs that are roughly right; the candidate's real intended attributes and quantity give arcs that are exactly right.

Running and reading results​

Click Run at the top of the results panel. The status chip moves through Queued → Running → Succeeded, and the Details tab shows a progress bar (N of M calculations). You can Cancel a run in progress, and Delete the whole placement from the same toolbar.

The results footbar has four tabs:

  • Details — the placement's name, run status, request/start/finish times, and the stale-data banner when applicable
  • Placement Feature — the Categories / Explosives / Attributes / Faces / Relationships configuration described above
  • Calculation Results — the candidate's required-vs-actual distances against the project. Use the Show selector to switch between Governing Distances, Required Distances, All Distances, Selected Results, and Dimensioned Results; search the table; and export Calculations to CSV (visible columns or all)
  • Symbols — a parameterized arc symbol editor for this placement only. Each placement carries its own symbol set, which is why two placements can be styled differently on the map at the same time

Comparing several placements​

Because each placement keeps its own symbols and arcs, you can show more than one at once. Toggle the eye icon next to each placement in the sidebar to add or remove its arcs from the map, then compare two candidate sites side by side without running anything again. Give competing placements distinct symbol colors (or Copy symbols from a baseline and tweak) so they read clearly when overlaid.

Stale data​

A placement's result reflects the project as it was when you ran it. If you later add, move, or edit features, or change operating lines, the placement no longer matches the project. Siter flags this:

  • the sidebar row shows a small orange stale dot
  • the Details tab shows a banner: "Project data has changed since this analysis was run. Run again to refresh."

Re-run the placement to bring it back in sync. Treat the stale flag as a hard signal — a stale placement's arcs can be quietly wrong.

Try it​

In a project with several existing PESs and ESs and a baseline analysis already run:

  1. Open the Placement Analyses sidebar and create a new placement named Candidate ECM — north pad
  2. On the Placement Feature tab, set the candidate to an ECM7 with a representative NEW, then position it near a spot you're considering
  3. Run it and open Calculation Results. Switch Show to Governing Distances and find the pair that governs the candidate's siting
  4. Turn on the placement's arcs with the eye icon and confirm its IBD arc clears the surrounding inhabited buildings
  5. Create a second placement at a different spot, give it a different arc color, and toggle both on to compare
  6. Move an existing feature, return to the sidebar, and watch the placement go stale — then re-run it

If a placement's site holds up, add the real facility there and run a full project analysis to confirm.