Help & Documentation

Hold Space and drag, or use the scroll bars. On a trackpad, use two-finger scroll to pan in any direction.

Use Ctrl + scroll wheel (or pinch on trackpad). The toolbar zoom buttons also work. Press Ctrl + 0 to fit the whole design into view.

The Layers panel lets you show or hide individual layers — Zones, Sectors, Plants, Animals, Water, Energy, Structures, Paths, and more. Hiding a layer doesn't delete anything; it just removes it from view temporarily.

Switch to the Select tool (arrow icon, or press V). Click any element to select it, then drag to move. Hold Shift to add more to your selection. Drag across empty canvas to rubber-band select multiple elements at once.

Press Ctrl + Z to undo. Press Ctrl + Y (or Ctrl + Shift + Z) to redo. The app keeps a full history for the current session.

The grid helps with alignment and spacing. Toggle it on/off and adjust cell size in Settings. Bold lines mark every 5th cell. When scale is set, grid squares represent real-world distances.

The compass in the corner of the canvas is a fixed north-orientation marker — canvas-up is treated as true north. It's decorative rather than adjustable; there's no separate "true north angle" setting. If your site photo isn't oriented north-up, rotate the photo itself before uploading it as your background.

Yes — select the Freehand tool from the toolbar. Click and drag to draw. Useful for sketching rough ideas, contours, or water flow paths that don't need to be precise elements.

Make sure the zone is properly closed (at least 3 vertices), the Zones layer is visible, and the zone has a zone number assigned in Properties. Analytics only reads from closed, labelled zones.

Coverage is each zone's area as a percentage of total zoned area. It reflects relative proportion — not absolute hectares — unless you have set a site scale in Scale Manager.

Yes, overlapping zones are allowed. Elements in overlapping areas are assigned to the innermost (lowest-numbered) zone. For clean analytics, keep zones concentric and non-overlapping where possible.

Sectors map environmental forces onto your site: sun paths, prevailing wind, water runoff, fire risk, noise, wildlife corridors, and views. They help you position elements to work with — rather than against — natural energy flows.

Select the Sector tool. Click to set the origin point (usually your house), then drag to define radius and sweep angle. The sector appears as a wedge arc. Edit angles and radius in Properties after placing.

Sun, Wind, Water, Wildlife, Fire, Pollution, Noise, People, and Views. Each has a default colour. Rename any sector and assign a custom colour in Properties.

If you enter your site latitude on the Site Brief page (or use "Use My Location" there), the app draws approximate summer and winter solstice sun arcs as a canvas overlay. These help visualise solar angles for passive solar design, shade placement, and seasonal sun access.

The Analytics Sector Analysis table shows how many elements fall within each sector's sweep area, broken down by plants and animals. This highlights which sectors are well-utilised and which may benefit from more design attention.

Site Brief is one of the four main tabs (alongside Design, Analytics, and Calendar). It holds your project's metadata (name, client, designer, date), site details (location, area, climate zone, tenure, aspect, slope, soil type, latitude/longitude), a live thumbnail of your canvas, and a set of calculators — Household Needs, Water Budget, Energy, Nutrients/Compost, and Food Production — that feed directly into Analytics. On a phone, these calculators collapse into a tap-to-open tile grid instead of a long scrolling page.

Latitude/longitude (typed in directly, or filled automatically via "Use My Location") drive real climate lookups — annual rainfall, solar hours, and frost dates — instead of generic estimates. The rainfall, sunlight and wind figures come from NASA's POWER project (credited in the app footer). These feed the Water Budget, Energy, and Calendar (planting/frost-relative events) calculations, and are also what KML/GeoJSON export uses to anchor your design to real-world coordinates. The sign of your latitude also tells the Calendar which hemisphere you're in, so planting and harvest months (and livestock laying, breeding, and honey windows) are shown for your seasons — a Sydney apple harvest lands in February–April, not August–October. With no location set, the Calendar uses Northern Hemisphere months. Your location also sets the Hardiness Zone on the Site Brief: a USDA zone worked out from Copernicus ERA5-Land climate records of recent years (about 9 km resolution), built into the app so it works even offline once loaded. In hilly country the app also looks up your site's elevation and corrects for it — type your own into the Elevation box if you know it. In steep country, such as mountain valleys, the zone can still be a zone or more out, so trust a local zone map or your own experience over it. You'll only see a rough latitude guess, marked with a ~, if no climate data can be loaded. Select a tree, shrub or perennial and its Info tab shows your site's zone beside the plant's own range, with a note when the plant is borderline or too tender for your winters. It's an estimate and can be off by one half-zone (for example 6a vs 6b); annual crops such as tomatoes aren't checked, since they're grown fresh each season.

Enter household size and calories per person per day (default 2,400). This is the figure the Food Production card's self-sufficiency percentage (also shown in Analytics) is measured against, and it drives the Water Budget's household demand line too.

Open the Plant Library panel. Browse or search for a species. Click "+" or drag it onto the canvas. The element auto-assigns to the zone it lands in. Select it to edit name, variety, size, and other properties.

Open the Animal Library. Select a species (chickens, ducks, goats, cows, pigs, sheep, bees, rabbits, and more) and place it on the canvas. Set the quantity in Properties — this drives feed, water, labour, and yield calculations in Analytics.

Guilds are companion planting groups — a central tree surrounded by nitrogen fixers, ground covers, pest deterrents, and pollinator attractors. Create guilds in the Guild panel. They are shown as a ring overlay on the canvas and their combined needs and yields flow through to Analytics.

The Crop tool draws a polygon bed directly on the canvas. Inside it, build a "Plants in this Bed" list — add one or more species, each with its own editable percentage share of the bed (a monoculture bed is just one species at 100%; a polyculture bed splits the area across several, and the percentages always sum to 100%). Yield, estimated plant count, and polyculture bonus are computed automatically from the drawn area and the mix you set — no manual row/plant spacing entry needed.

Select Hedgerow or Windbreak and drag along the line you want it to follow — this places a whole row of evenly-spaced bushes (hedgerow) or trees (windbreak) in one action, sharing a group id. Click any member afterward to select, move, or delete the whole row together, the same way you would a single element.

Use the water element types: Roof (rainwater catchment — traced as a real polygon on the canvas, with area computed from the drawn shape), Tank (storage), Pond, and Swale. Each feeds directly into the water balance calculations in Analytics.

Select the relevant tool from the toolbar. Click to place waypoints along fences and paths, then double-click to finish. Structures appear on their own layer and are included in canvas captures for the PDF report.

Every element has resource needs (water, feed, labour, space) and yields (food, eggs, milk, manure, energy). The app aggregates these across your whole design and shows net surpluses and deficits by domain in Analytics — helping you close resource loops.

Supply comes from Roof catchment elements (catchment area x annual rainfall x runoff coefficient, expressed as a daily figure) plus Tank and Pond storage. Annual rainfall comes from the Site Brief page — either real climate data once you've set a location, or an offline latitude-band estimate — and each Roof's area is computed automatically from its drawn shape (set its runoff coefficient in Properties).

Net Balance = Daily Supply minus total demand (household + plant + livestock). Positive means a surplus; negative means a deficit. Storage capacity is shown separately as a buffer measured in days of supply.

Roof — drawn as a real polygon on the canvas; area and centerline are computed from the traced shape. Tank — stores water; set volume in Properties. Pond — stores and provides water; enter surface area and depth. Swale — passively captures and infiltrates runoff; enter length and width.

The Water Sketch layer shows animated flow arrows between linked water elements — visualising how water moves from roof to tank to swale to pond. Connect elements via the Water panel to see your network animated on the canvas.

The Water Budget layer draws labelled link lines between water elements showing daily flow rates — giving an at-a-glance view of how water is allocated across your network.

Open the Household system panel in Needs & Yields and enter your daily electricity load in kWh/day. This is the primary demand figure used in the Energy Balance.

Select the Solar Panel element and place it on the canvas — ideally within a Sun sector. Open Properties and enter daily generation capacity in kWh/day. Multiple panels are summed in the energy balance.

Select the Wind Turbine element and place it within a Wind sector. Enter generation capacity in Properties. Wind is shown separately from solar in the Analytics energy chart.

Any energy element that is neither Solar nor Wind — such as micro-hydro or biogas — contributes to "Other" generation in the energy balance.

Analytics shows: zone coverage and productivity, sector element distribution, plant yields split into their own charts by category (Fruit, Vegetables, Greens, Nuts, Grain, Mushrooms, Feed — so a crop grown for animal feed doesn't get blended into the food-yield figures), livestock production totals, water balance chart and metrics, energy balance chart and metrics, needs vs yields by domain (feed, water, labour, space, energy, food), and design gap recommendations with suggested actions. On a phone, these cards collapse into a tap-to-open tile grid.

Design Gaps are automatically detected shortfalls or risks in your design — for example an energy deficit, a single water source, overstocked zones, or high labour demand. Each gap shows severity (High / Medium / Low), deficit amount, causes, and specific suggested actions to address it.

The three chips at the top of Analytics show the health of Energy, Water, and Labour. Green = surplus or balanced. Amber = minor shortfall. Red = significant deficit requiring attention.

Plant yields require the species to have yield data in the Library (kg/year per plant). Species without yield data contribute 0. Add custom yield values by editing the species in the Plant Library panel.

Self-sufficiency % = total annual food yield (kcal) divided by your household's estimated calorie need — household size × calories per person per day (default 2,400), both set on the Site Brief page. 100% means your design's food production covers that need.

Coverage is relative to total zoned area only. Areas of your site without a zone drawn are not counted — so percentages reflect the proportion of what has been zoned, not the entire site boundary.

Canvas captures require the design canvas to be visible. Make sure you are on the main Design view (not inside a modal) when you click Download Report. If images are still missing, try refreshing the page and regenerating.

The background is included when loaded from a file upload (stored as a base64 data URL). If you loaded it from an external URL, it may not be available due to browser security restrictions on cross-origin images.

The Calendar tab shows a monthly view of planting windows, harvests, and animal care tasks derived from the species and elements on your canvas. Navigate months with the arrow buttons at the top.

Use the filter pills at the top of the calendar. Choose from: All, Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Plants, Animals, Daily tasks, or Weekly tasks. Your filter preference is remembered between sessions.

Events come from species data in the Library — planting seasons, harvest windows, and animal care schedules. Adding more species with complete seasonal data to your design will populate the calendar further. Month ranges are shown for the hemisphere of your Site Brief location.

Every project is saved to your browser's local storage first — this happens automatically as you work, and persists between sessions on the same device and browser. If you're signed in, a private backup is also pushed to the cloud automatically on every save, independent of Project Sharing. Even so, don't rely on browser storage alone for anything irreplaceable — export a JSON backup (below) for your own copy.

Click the ⋮ (file) menu next to the logo, top-left. It holds Export JSON (a complete, standalone backup file), Import (load a JSON file, replacing the current canvas — export your current work first if you don't want to lose it), and Version History and Share, described in their own section below.

On the EarthWise Design Hub (your "My Designs" list, shown after signing in), open the project and choose "Load latest cloud version." This is always explicit — it never overwrites your local copy automatically — so you're never surprised by a version you didn't ask for.

Yes. The EarthWise Design Hub lists every project you own — create, rename, open, and delete from there. Each project has its own canvas, elements, settings, background image, and history stored independently.

Open the ⋮ (file) menu and click Share. Generate an invite link and send it to a collaborator, or manage existing members. Each member has a role — Editor (can change the design) or Viewer (read-only) — which you can change or revoke at any time.

Editors can place, edit, and delete elements, and change project settings, the same as the owner short of deleting the project or managing sharing itself. Viewers see the live design update in real time but can't make changes. Ownership itself can be transferred to another member if needed.

Open Version History from the ⋮ (file) menu (Pro feature) to see up to 5 recent snapshots of your project, each with a thumbnail and timestamp. Restoring one first saves your current state as its own recovery point, so restoring is never a one-way trip.

Base is a one-time purchase covering the full design tool: unlimited use of the canvas, zones, sectors, all element types, Site Brief calculators, Analytics, Calendar, automatic cloud backup, and Version History.

Pro is a subscription that adds: PDF Report export, Blueprint Mode (a clean schematic canvas style, swapping icons for labelled shapes — useful for client-facing presentation), custom icon uploads (replace any species' icon with your own image), unlimited projects (Base is capped), KML/GeoJSON export (for use in other mapping/GIS tools), and Project Sharing.

Open Settings (your account icon, top-right) → Billing to see your current plan, upgrade, or manage an existing subscription. Anywhere a Pro feature is locked, clicking it shows the same upgrade prompt directly.