Feature

Terrain Editing

Shape your land before breaking ground

The Challenge

Understanding and modifying terrain is fundamental to any land project, but traditional tools make it difficult:

  • Satellite imagery shows what's there, not what you need
  • Traditional grading tools require expensive civil engineering software
  • Visualizing cut/fill volumes is nearly impossible without specialized training
  • Sharing terrain modifications with contractors means exporting complex data formats

The SiteCAD Way

SiteCAD's terrain system lets you bring in high-resolution elevation from any source, reshape it with intuitive brush tools, and paint surface materials that drive live vegetation. Whether you're planning a building pad, designing drainage, modeling an excavation, or dressing a site with grass and shrubs for presentation, you can see exactly how your changes affect the land.

How It Works

1

Set Up

Worldwide terrain and imagery are there from the start. Add your own survey or orthophoto as a layer source when you have one.

2

Modify

Use brush tools to raise, lower, smooth, or flatten terrain. Set target elevations for precise grading.

3

Paint

Paint surface materials — turf, meadow, gravel, bark, asphalt and more — with a radius/opacity/falloff brush. Vegetation scatters automatically where you paint planting materials.

4

Visualize

Toggle contour lines to see elevation changes. Adjust terrain opacity to reveal underground features.

5

Analyze

Compare original and modified terrain to calculate cut/fill volumes.

6

Share

Hand the whole design — layer stack, edits and all — to a colleague as a scenario bundle, or publish a link they can explore in 3D.

Key Capabilities

Terrain Layers

Stack proposed grading over existing conditions — hide, duplicate, or re-source a layer without losing your edits

Brush Tools

Interactive raise/lower/smooth/flatten operations with configurable radius and strength

Contour Visualization

True LOD contour lines at any zoom level (major, minor, and index intervals)

Multi-Source Terrain

Layer high-resolution site terrain over global context

Imagery Capture

Orthoimagery is captured for ground you edit, so grading stays textured as you sculpt it

Solid Subtraction

Cut terrain using solid footprints for excavations

Material Painting

Paint surface materials directly onto terrain — planting, hardscape, and natural — with adjustable radius, opacity, and falloff

Live Vegetation

GPU-rendered grass, shrubs, and perennials scatter automatically from painted materials, with wind animation and distance-based LOD

Who Uses This

Homesteaders

Plan building pads and drainage before hiring a contractor

Surveyors

Visualize survey data and design grading from real-world coordinates

Developers

Calculate cut/fill for road grading and lot preparation

Landscapers

Design retention ponds, berms, and grade transitions — then paint planting zones and see live grass and shrubs fill in

Try Terrain Editing

Open the editor, pick up the terrain brush, and grade a building pad — then toggle contours to see your work.