Working with the coordinate system
Written by Cody Yakimoff
Updated at August 14th, 2023
Table of Contents
Overview
This article will cover how to work with the coordinate system within Neara, for information on specifying an EPSG code and centering a design using the map tool, view this article: Adding a map overlay to your design
Imported survey data coordinates
Neara will automatically centre the design from an imported survey file (Project menu > Import from DXF).
If data is already present with meaningful coordinates, and the data being imported is "far away" from the original data's coordinates, you might see this warning:
This is due to a big offset distance between the centre of the import file and the centre of the current work space. By default, the centre of a blank work space will be X:0 Y:0.
The centre of a imported file is typically in a global coordinate system of some kind. These two centres can be many kilometers/miles away. If unadjusted, the work space will appear blank after an import as there is no data at X:0 Y:0 of the import file.
To update the work space centre either :
- Enter in the easting and northing coordinate of your choice in the Local Coord Offset field; or
- Click the link in the warning message to update the easting/northing from the file data location. This will be a centre automatically calculated from the import file. Note that you may still encounter a blank work space. This is because the centre of the import file is blank. In that case, manually enter in the easting and northing to an area that has data.
When importing multiple files, ensure the Local Coord Offset is the same for all imports so that the imports will line up.
Updating an existing georeferenced design
To recentre the map overlay coordinates, simply click on the map tool and click on a new location in the map. You can then follow the steps on how to set up a map overlay outlined here to update the overlay for your design.
Automatically updating the coordiante system
This can be found in the spatial section of the properties panel for the survey tool 
If enabled, the model spatial reference (and internal origin) will automatically update based on where the user's view is located. The spatial reference ID is chosen from loaded Point Clouds in the area, and if the choice is ambiguous maximum compatibility is maintained. When sufficiently zoomed out, the spatial reference may automatically change to 3857 (web mercator) at which point calculation results should be ignored. This attempts to automatically avoid graphical and precision issues that can occur when traversing very large distances or crossing coordinate system boundaries in the one project.