Design Review

The Design review is a second look at the design on your map. It lists:

• Suggestions: what breaks your area's rules, and tips from past designs, each with what to do about it.
• From photo: buildings, driveways, ponds and tree areas that landplan's land cover model found in the aerial imagery of the parcel but that are not on your map yet, ready to add to it.
• Detections: for admins and trusted reviewers, the model's least sure finds to confirm or correct.

Open it from the Design review rows at the top of the Smart design panel: click Review on a row. The badge on the Design button shows how many suggestions there are (red when one must be fixed, amber for tips only); click the badge to open the review. The map stays usable while it is open.

Video coming soon: Design review (suggestions, outlines, detections). Until then, follow the steps on this page.

The review runs only with Use land cover and learned preferences on, in the Smart design panel. With it off there is no review, no badge and no outlines. Nothing in the review changes your map until you click one of its buttons.

Where the review shows

The review shows in one of two places:

• In a separate window beside Smart design, the default on a large screen. Minimize shrinks it to a pill; click the pill to open it again.
• Inside Smart design, under its rows, the default on a small screen. A row's Review then reads Hide.

To switch, click Show inside Smart design in the window's title bar, or Show in a separate window at the end of the first row. Your choice is kept in this browser.

Suggestions

The Suggestions tab has two groups:

• Must fix: the design breaks your area's rules, measured as the checks measure them, for example Move the absorption area away from the well or Use a bigger septic tank.
• Tips: the design is unusual compared with past designs or the soil survey, for example Turn the absorption area to follow the contour or Water table about 15 in down. Tips never block anything.

Each suggestion has a short title, one sentence of why with the numbers, and a fix button such as Move it, Use a 1,250 gal tank or Add it. Without a fix it says What to do.

• Click a suggestion's title to zoom the map to the part and highlight it.
• Click the fix button to apply it. Undo reverses it. There is no "fix all": one fix per click.
• Read more shows the rule or the past-design numbers behind it and where they come from.
• Not now hides the suggestion for this project.
• Check again reviews the map as it is now, for example after you moved a part by hand.

When no place on the parcel meets every setback, a move marks the closest place with A and says what it still breaks. Click Move there anyway, or Move it myself to drag the part. See Suggestions and checks.

From photo

The From photo tab lists what the aerial imagery shows inside the project's parcel and your map doesn't have yet, for example 3 buildings, 1 driveway, 1 pond found in the parcel. Smart design's row counts them: 4 features found in the aerial photo. It needs the parcel line: without it, the tab asks you to add the parcel.

While the tab is open, the outlines show on the map as dashed lines. They are never saved, exported or printed.

• Point at an outline in the list to highlight it on the map; click it to zoom to it.
• Click Add to draw it on your map. A building goes on Auxiliary Building (use Use as residence to make it the house), a driveway on Hardscape, a tree area on Tree and a pond on Isolation Features as a water body, with its setback. Undo (or Ctrl+Z) takes it off again.
• Click Wrong when there is nothing there. The outline leaves the list; nothing is drawn.
• Read more shows the land cover class, how sure the model is, the area and the layer Add draws on.
• Outlines the model is less than 60% sure of are hidden: click Show N less sure to see them.

Outlines that overlap something you already drew are left out. Nothing is ever drawn by itself.

Detections

The Detections tab (and the Detections to review row) shows only to admins and trusted reviewers. It goes through the land cover model's least sure detections across all maps, one at a time: Is this a building?, with its size, how sure the model is, and its map and project. The map zooms to it and highlights it, even when it is on another map; the view goes back when you close the tab. Nothing is drawn on any map.

Answer with:

• Confirm: the detection is right.
• Not a building (or driveway, pond, tree): it is not.
• Change class: it is something else; pick what.
• Skip: no answer; it comes back next session.

What the models do

landplan's models learn from the aerial imagery and from past designs. They only advise: your area's rules decide what is allowed.

• Land cover: finds buildings, driveways and paved areas, water and trees in the aerial imagery. It gives the From photo list and the Detections, and tells Smart design where the house, driveway and trees are.
• Design experience: distances and choices in past designs of your state, such as how far the system usually is from the house and the property line, the usual tank size for the bedrooms, and which system is usual on a slope like yours. It gives the Tips and ranks the spots Smart design tries.
• Soil survey: red flags from the NRCS soil survey for the parcel, such as a shallow water table. Also Tips.

Each model is switched on or off by landplan for the whole site. When one is off, the app works as it did without it.

Teach the models: Add and Wrong

Your answers make the models better:

• Add on an outline tells the land cover model the imagery shows that class there.
• Wrong tells it there is no such feature there.
• In Detections, Confirm, Not a ... and Change class do the same for the model's least sure finds.

The answers are sent with the outline's shape and class, and the next training run uses them with the features designers drew. An Add you undo keeps its answer: the imagery did show it. Skip and Not now send nothing.