Measuring a Surface

You can measure surfaces.

Before you begin:
  • You cannot select multiple surfaces, only one at a time.
  • You can measure horizontal surfaces only, not vertical ones.
  1. From the Tools section of the action bar, click Measure Surface .
  2. In the Measure Units panel, select the appropriate unit system.
    • Metric system also known as the "International System of Units (SI)" which is the international decimal system of weights and measures. The following units are used:
      Unit Abbreviation
      Millimeter mm
      Meter m
      Kilometer km
      Square meter m2
      Square kilometer km2
      Hectare ha
    • Imperial system for units defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824. The following units are used:
      Unit Abbreviation
      Inch in
      Foot ft
      Yard yd
      Mile mi
      Square inch sqin
      Square foot sqft
      Square mile sqmi
      Acre ac

    Tip: You can toggle between unit systems while measuring your environment. The measure information is refreshed next time you click.

    The selected unit is saved in the browser local storage associated with the platform URL. This means that you retrieve the selected unit on any dashboard containing a City widget, provided that you use the same computer, the same Windows account, the same web browser, and that you have not cleared internal app settings.

    Units are adaptive: when measuring at small scale, the units are "feet" and "meters", while changing the points to larger distances, the units will adapt to "miles" or "kilometers" (depending on the chosen metric system).

  3. Click successively to draw the borders of the surface you want to measure, and then click back the first point to close the outline.

    Tip: When at least two lines are drawn, double-click to close the drawn surface.

    At each point you click, the length of the outline is displayed like with the Measure Distance command. When you close the outline, the polygonal area is colorized in light blue and the 2D area (as seen from vertically above) is calculated.

    Note: Even though the measure is displayed in meters, the area is actually calculated in the unit of the local projection. Therefore, the precision might differ depending on the accuracy of the local projection used by the database.

  4. Click Measure Surface to exit the command.
    The surface is deselected.