How to use map layers
A map layer puts thematic data on top of the background map. This page goes the whole way: finding the layer in the catalogue, seeing what it contains before you add it, reading it against the plot you are working on, and switching it off again.
Who this is for
Everyone who uses the map in Placepoint Fusion. Developers, agents, case officers, analysts and credit staff who need to answer one question about one area, and need the right layer on top of the right background. The pages that work through a full checklist, Feasibility study and Assess risk, assume this one.
The example used throughout the page is Tordenskiolds gate 2 in central Oslo, but nothing here depends on location: the catalogue is the same wherever in the country you are. Map layers is the reference page with all the categories and every single layer.
The checklist
| Item | What to look for | Where in Placepoint |
|---|---|---|
| Find the layer | Category, search across, favourites | The catalogue behind Map layer |
| Assess the layer | Description, source, update frequency | The detail pane in the catalogue |
| Sublayers | Which parts of the layer are drawn | The detail pane |
| Narrowing down | The fields the layer can be filtered on | The detail pane |
| Switch on and off | One layer at a time, without losing it | The map layer panel at the top right |
| Colour codes | What an area or a symbol means | Legend at the bottom left |
| Background | Map or aerial photo under the layer | Background Map in the top bar |
| Against the property | What the layer says about the plot you are looking at | The property panel with the layer on |
Video: from an empty map to two active layers
The video goes from an empty map to two active layers: Noise mapping (T-1442) and Traffic accidents – heat map, both found through the search field in the catalogue. The switches in the map layer panel then turn one layer at a time off and on, without the map moving.
Duration: 1 minute and 9 seconds. The full collection is on Videos.
The catalogue
Click Map layer at the top right. That opens a small panel with the layers you already have in the map, and Browse map layers opens the catalogue.
The catalogue is split in two: the category list on the left, and one card per layer on the right. Each card has a thumbnail of the style sheet, a short factual text, the supplier the layer comes from, a star for favourite and the Add button. If the layer has sublayers or filters, that is shown as a marker on the card. The buttons next to the search field switch between grid and list; the list fits more layers on the screen.
Above the categories there are four entry points: Favorites is the layers you have starred, Recently used the ones you have had open before, Added the ones in the map now, and All the entire catalogue.
Find the layer
Three ways in, and which one you take depends on whether you know the name of the layer.
If you pick a category, the catalogue shows only that one, with an introduction saying what the category collects and where the data comes from. That is the way to go when you know what kind of question you have, but not which layer answers it.
The search field works across all categories, and looks in the description as well as in the name. Type "flom" and you get the flood zones and the awareness areas, but also Landslides and Protection structures, which do not have the word in the name. That is the quickest way when you know what you are looking for, and it finds layers a category route would have passed by.
The star on the card puts the layer under Favorites. If you run the same round on plot after plot, this is where you avoid searching again every time. Recently used does half the job by itself for layers you have just had open.
See what the layer contains before you add it
Click the name on a card, and the detail pane opens on the right. It answers what the card does not have room for.
The About text is usually the supplier's own description of the data set. Below it are the categories the layer is filed under, and at the bottom Sources, with the supplier and how often the layer is updated. For Enova Energy Labelling the source is Placepoint and the update frequency is weekly. That line decides whether the layer is fresh enough for the question you are asking.
Sublayers
A composite layer draws several things at once, and the detail pane lists them with a description each.
Municipal plans has fourteen sublayers, split into one group for the municipal sub-plan and one for the municipality plan itself: labelling, legal points, plan area, boundaries and legal lines, consideration zones and land use purposes. Each of them can be switched on and off separately. If you only want to see the plan boundaries, that is the sublayer you leave on, and the rest stays out of the way.
What a layer can be narrowed down on
A layer with filters shows them in the same pane, as a list of the fields the layer can be narrowed down on. Enova Energy Labelling has five: Energivurdert, Beregnet Levert Energi Totalt KWh m2, Materialtype, Bygningskategori and Energimerke. The card in the catalogue marks the layer with Filters, so you see it before you open the pane. The fields per layer are also listed in the Filtering section on the layer's own page under Map layers.
The map layer panel
The layers you have added sit as rows in the panel behind Map layer at the top right.
Each row has the layer's thumbnail, the name and a switch. The switch hides the layer without removing it, which is the difference between comparing two layers and having to find one of them again afterwards. The rows can be dragged into order, and that decides which layer is drawn on top when two areas overlap.
More options on the row gives you two things: See legend opens the colour codes for that specific layer, and Remove from menu takes it out of the map. A removed layer is not lost; it sits under Recently used in the catalogue.
The legend
The icon at the bottom left of the map opens the Legend, and it is open in every map image on this page. Without it, a layer is colours without a key.
Noise mapping (T-1442) is a good example of why. The layer draws three sources in the same area, and the legend separates them: noise zones for road, for Avinor's airports and for Bane NOR's rail network, each with a yellow and a red zone. The yellow area along Ring 1 and the yellow area around a railway track are not the same finding, and it is the legend that says which is which.
The legend lists all active layers below each other. If the layer has no legend, the pane says so instead of standing empty.
Combine layers
Layers from different categories can be in the map at the same time, and it is usually the combination that answers the question.
Here the noise zones sit under the heat map for traffic accidents. The two are connected: where the traffic volume is high enough to give a red noise zone, that is also where the accidents gather. At the same time, two areas on top of each other are hard to read, and that is when the switch in the map layer panel does the job: show one layer, look at it, show the other.
| Purpose | Layers to combine |
|---|---|
| Natural hazards together | Risk: landslides, flooding and quick clay |
| Geotechnical screening | Risk and Geology: quick clay, flooding and superficial deposits |
| Housing suitability | Risk, Noise and Pollution |
| Socio-economics | Demographics: population, income and age distribution |
| Development potential | Zoning and Buildings |
ℹ Layers that fetch data from a WMS or WFS service, including quick clay, landslides and the layers from Norges geologiske undersøkelse (NGU), take a few seconds to draw the first time. A layer that looks empty right after you added it has usually just not finished loading.
Background map
The layer is drawn on top of a background map, and which background map you have underneath changes what you actually see.
Background Map in the top bar opens the selector. The default is Basis Terrain, a light map where the layers stand out, and it is used in all the other images here. Below the list are the switches for matrikkel boundaries and land use, and a separate tab for 3D Settings.
Hybrid puts the same layer on top of an aerial photo with place names. The difference is not cosmetic: on Basis Terrain you see that the noise zone covers a block, on Hybrid you see what is in the block. For noise, flood zones and everything else that has to be assessed against actual buildings, the aerial photo settles the matter.
Read the layer against the plot
A layer over an area is an observation. A layer over the property you are working on is a finding.
Click the plot so the property panel opens, and leave the layer on. Then you read the two together: the panel says what the property is, the layer says what it sits in. The energy label from Enova SF on the neighbouring buildings puts the property's own energy certificate in context, and the same move works for each of the points in a feasibility study or a risk round.
The screenshot from the map, with the legend open, goes straight into the case report. Tags keep together the properties that are to go through the same round.
Neighbouring areas
- Map layers for the reference: all the categories, every layer and what it contains.
- Understand property and context for the lookup on one property, which the layers here provide the context for.
- Assess risk for the risk layers read off on one plot.
- Feasibility study for the full site analysis, point by point.
- Find property and opportunities when you are looking for the plot instead of having been given it.
- Analyse value and potential when the findings are to be turned into a valuation.
- Manage and monitor a portfolio to run the same round on a whole portfolio.