Measuring

Every 3D and map viewer in Swyvl has measurement tools. They work on the hub and on client share links, on every plan, and they need nothing installed.

Where the tools are

Open a file and look along the bottom of the viewer. A small pill sits there, collapsed to a + button. Expand it and you get Select · Point · Distance · Area · Height, plus a ⋯ menu for units, coordinate system, Simple/Advanced and Clear all.

Tools a file cannot support are shown greyed out with a reason in their tooltip, rather than hidden, so the layout is the same on every viewer.

The four tools

Tool	Picks	What you get
Point	One click	The coordinates of that point, and its elevation where the file has one
Distance	Two or more clicks	Total length, point to point or along a path
Area	Three or more clicks	The plan area of the polygon
Height	Two clicks	The vertical difference between the two points. 3D viewers only

Finishing a shape: double-click, press Enter, or right-click. Point and Height finish on their own. Backspace removes the last point; Escape cancels. On a touch screen a Done button appears in the pill while a tool is active.

The measurement exists as soon as you finish. A card appears above the pill with the value, a unit switch, the badge, an Advanced disclosure and Delete. There is no Save button, because measurements are not saved (see below).

Which files can be measured

File	Point	Distance	Area	Height
Orthomosaics and other GeoTIFFs	✓	✓	✓	—
3D Tiles	✓	✓	✓	✓
Point clouds (LAS, LAZ, E57)	✓	✓	✓	✓
Xgrids LCC and LCC2 scans	✓	✓	✓	✓
Gaussian splats (PLY, SPZ, KSPLAT, .splat)	✓	✓	✓	✓
Vector maps (GeoJSON, KML, SHP, GPX)	✓	✓	✓	—

Height needs a third dimension, so it is not offered on flat maps. 360° photos, still photos, video and PDFs have no measurement tools.

The badge: what the numbers rest on

Every card carries one of three badges. The badge describes the frame the numbers are in, never the accuracy of the capture. A measurement is only as good as the survey behind it.

Badge	Meaning	Typical files
Georeferenced	The file sits on a named coordinate system, so coordinates and lengths are real-world and can be checked against control	Orthomosaics, 3D Tiles, vector maps, point clouds whose file carries a coordinate system
True scale	Lengths are real metres, but the file has no map position	An Xgrids scan measured on its mesh (a georeferenced export is Georeferenced instead); a point cloud in a local frame with metres declared
Indicative	The file carries no verified scale. Treat the number as a rough size, not a dimension. Not for construction, permitting or dimensional verification	Gaussian splats; scans measured without a mesh

Click the badge and the viewer explains why that file got it.

Simple and Advanced

Simple shows the headline value. Advanced adds the horizontal and vertical components drawn on the model, the deltas, slope, bearing (where the frame is georeferenced), perimeter and edge lengths. For a Point it lists the coordinates in every system available for that file. Switch from the ⋯ menu or on any card. The setting lasts for the session and defaults to Simple.

Units and coordinate systems

• Default from where you are. Viewers in the United States get imperial; everyone else gets metric. It follows the person reading, not the organisation that owns the file, because the reader of a share link is who matters.
• Metric or imperial, with the unit chosen automatically by magnitude (m, cm, km; ft, in, mi) or fixed. Area follows: m², ha, km²; ft², acres.
• Feet are international feet. When a file’s coordinate system declares US survey feet, the conversion honours that and the card says so.
• Point coordinates can be read in WGS84 (decimal or degrees-minutes-seconds) with height, the file’s own grid where it has one (for example MGA zone 54), the UTM zone picked from the longitude, or the file’s local X/Y/Z. Elevations are labelled with their reference (ellipsoid, the file’s vertical datum, or local Z).
• Click any number to copy it.

On share links

The same tools appear on share links for everyone you send the link to. Measurements are for the session and are never written to the file, so a client can measure freely without changing anything in your delivery.

Not saved

Measurements live for the session. Close the file and they are gone. The card can be dragged out of the way and stays where you put it; a count badge on the pill lists everything measured so far, and Clear all removes them.

There is no volume tool, no saved measurements and no cross-section tool.

Notes by viewer

• Point clouds: the badge depends on the file. A COPC that carries its coordinate system is Georeferenced; a local-frame file is True scale or Indicative, and the badge says which.
• Xgrids LCC and LCC2: measuring needs the scan’s collision mesh, the same mesh Walk mode’s collisions use. With a mesh the badge is True scale, or Georeferenced when the export carries a position on a named grid. Without a mesh, picks land on splat centres and the badge reads Indicative. Mesh chunks stream in by distance; a pick on an unloaded chunk asks you to move closer rather than failing silently. While a tool is active, click-to-walk is suppressed.
• Gaussian splats: always Indicative. The numbers assume the file is in metres and each pick lands on the nearest splat, not a true surface. Picks need the whole file loaded, so the tools wait until the loading indicator has gone.
• 3D Tiles: picks land on the tileset and the terrain. Heights are WGS84 ellipsoidal and labelled as such.
• Orthomosaics and maps: planar maths in the file’s own coordinate system, with a UTM fallback.