Settings reference
Every row of the Settings tab explained, section by section. Surveyor name, receiver, 3D capture, 3D view, map cache, units and feedback.
The Settings tab holds setup rather than everyday actions: who's measuring, how you're positioned, how 3D captures and the 3D view behave, how much map data is stored, and which units the screen uses. This page covers every row, in the order they appear.
Who is measuring
| Row | What it does |
|---|---|
| Surveyor | Your name or initials. |
"Stamped on every observation and on the QA report." Whatever is in this field when you take a shot is saved with it, and shows on the asset's details as Surveyor. Set it before you start work, and change it when someone else picks up the phone.
Positioning
| Row | What it does |
|---|---|
| Precision & receiver | Opens the Precision sheet, where you connect a GNSS receiver, set up NTRIP corrections and set the antenna height. The right side shows the current state: the fix type with a receiver (for example Fixed), Reconnecting… while a receiver is reconnecting, or the position source otherwise. You can also open this sheet by holding the accuracy pill on any screen. |
| Camera offset (handheld) | Opens Camera offset: where the receiver sits relative to the phone's camera when you hold them together, for example on a capture grip. Left and Right presets match the Emlid RX2 capture grip, or you can enter measured values in metres. This offset applies to the positions of photos and captures. Pole height, set in the Precision sheet, applies to surveyed points instead. |
See Connect a Bluetooth receiver, NTRIP corrections and Antenna height.
3D capture
| Row | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Record scan frames | Off | Saves posed keyframes (photos, depth, camera pose and the GNSS fix behind each one) alongside a LiDAR point-cloud capture, so it can be reconstructed again later with an offline engine. Roughly 50–150 MB per minute. |
| Keep photo-scan photos | On | Keeps the GPS-stamped source photos of a photogrammetry capture (100 MB or more per scan). |
| Photos in bundle exports | Off | Includes those photogrammetry source photos when you export a bundle (ZIP). Off, bundles leave them out to stay small. |
See LiDAR point clouds, Photogrammetry and Export a bundle.
3D view
| Row | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical exaggeration | 1× | Stretches terrain heights in the 3D view: 1×, 1.5×, 2× or 3×. Useful on flat sites where small slopes are hard to see. Display only. |
| Snap phone-GPS heights to terrain | On | Draws points measured with phone GPS on the terrain surface instead of at their measured height. |
The terrain comes from public elevation models, about 10 m resolution in the US and 30 m elsewhere, with heights above sea level. Phone-GPS heights can be 5–15 m off, which is why they snap to the terrain by default. RTK and imported heights are always shown where they were measured. See 3D site model.
Map cache
Map tiles and imagery are stored on the phone so a site works offline and doesn't download again every visit. This section shows how much space each kind uses:
| Row | What it is |
|---|---|
| Basemap tiles (2D) | The flat map's tiles. |
| Terrain tiles (DEM) | Elevation data for the 3D site model. |
| Draped imagery (3D) | Imagery laid over the 3D terrain. |
| Downloaded areas (kept) | Only shown if you've downloaded offline areas: how many, and their size. |
| Terrain cache limit | How much space terrain tiles can use: 250 MB, 500 MB (the default) or 1 GB. |
| Clear map tile cache | Deletes the basemap tiles, terrain tiles and draped imagery. Greyed out when there's nothing to clear. |
When you tap Clear map tile cache, the app asks Clear the map tile cache? and shows how much will be removed. Tap Clear to go ahead. Tiles download again when needed, so the only cost is data. Downloaded offline areas (Tools → Offline maps) and 3D site models you've already built (Tools → 3D site model) are kept.
Display
| Row | Options |
|---|---|
| Units | Meters, Feet, US survey feet or Both (the default). |
What each option shows on screen:
| Option | Lengths, areas and elevations |
|---|---|
| Meters | Metric only: metres, kilometres, hectares. |
| Feet | International feet (1 ft = 0.3048 m). |
| US survey feet | US survey feet (1 ftUS = 1200/3937 m), the unit of ftUS state plane zones. |
| Both | Metric, with feet alongside. The foot used follows the project's coordinate system: US survey feet on a ftUS zone, international feet otherwise. |
The footer under the picker says which foot Both is currently using for the active project.
Where you type a length or elevation, the field uses whichever unit leads on screen: metres under Meters and Both, and your chosen foot under Feet and US survey feet. The field's label always shows the unit.
See Units and Coordinate systems.
Feedback
| Row | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Report a problem | — | Opens the report form, to send a note and a screenshot to the people who build OpenSurvey3D. If any reports are still waiting for a connection, the row shows … waiting to send. |
| Offer to report after a screenshot | On | When you take a screenshot anywhere in the app, a banner asks Report a problem with this screen? with a Report button. Switch this off if you take screenshots for other reasons and the banner gets in the way. |
A report that can't be sent waits on the phone and goes by itself when there's a signal. See Report a problem and Privacy.
About
| Row | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Version | The app version and build number, for example 1.4 (212). Include it when you report a problem. |
| OpenSurvey3D on GitHub | Opens the app's source code repository. |