Site selection · built form
A built-form brief for each candidate site.
Housing type, density and land use inside the radius you set, read from high-resolution imagery when you ask for it.
Files, per candidate site
Each request comes back as a numbered set. Nothing arrives on a schedule.
- No.
- 01
- File
- Built-form brief
- Format
PDF- What's in it
- One numbered brief per candidate site. It opens with the site reference block (site ID, date requested, radius), then the housing type mix, a density estimate and the land use breakdown. It's built to drop into a site approval package.
- Cadence
- Per request
- No.
- 02
- File
- Radius map layer
- Format
GeoJSON- What's in it
- The catchment around the site, split into the classes the brief reports. Load it over your own trade area polygons and competitor points in whatever GIS you already run.
- Cadence
- Per request
- No.
- 03
- File
- Candidate comparison
- Format
CSV- What's in it
- One row per candidate site, with the same measures side by side. Send several sites in one request and the read is consistent across all of them, so the list can be ranked in a spreadsheet.
- Cadence
- Per request
- No.
- 04
- File
- Imagery note
- Format
Note- What's in it
- The date of the imagery behind each brief, and any part of the radius that was cloud-covered or stayed on older imagery. You can tell how current each brief is before it goes to committee.
- Cadence
- Per request
From candidate list to brief
You supply a site and a radius. The brief comes back when a usable pass exists.
01Input
Send the site and radius
A coordinate or address for each candidate, plus the radius in miles. Several sites in one request is fine.
02Process
Imagery is sourced
High-resolution RGB imagery of the radius, from the most recent cloud-free pass we can get.
03Process
Built form is classified
Buildings and land are classified and segmented, then summed over the radius into housing type mix, density and land use.
04Output
Brief and layer come back
The PDF, the GeoJSON layer and the CSV row for each site, numbered to match your request.
Operating envelope
Read these before the brief goes into a package.
- Cloud and imagery age
- Optical imagery needs a clear view. If a site has no recent cloud-free pass, the request waits, and the imagery note shows how old the picture is. We don't promise a turnaround time.
- Resolution
- At 0.5–2 m a house is a handful of pixels across, enough to count buildings and tell a detached house from an apartment block. At the coarse end of that range, attached rows can read as one footprint, so the housing type split between detached and attached is less sharp there.
- RGB only
- Red, green and blue bands give you what is built. They don't give you vegetation health, heat or occupancy, and nothing here relies on them.
- Built form, not people
- The brief describes buildings and land. It doesn't count residents, income, households or visitors, and a dense block of apartments can be full or half empty.
- A proxy, one input among several
- Built form doesn't predict sales or footfall. Treat it the way you'd treat any single layer: next to your demographics, competitor view and analog stores.
Why this exists
The trade area package already has demographic tables, and those describe people, not the ground. So the analyst opens aerial imagery in the GIS, or has someone drive the area, to see what's really built around each candidate, one site at a time, before committee. On a long list that check is slow, and every analyst reads the ground a little differently. This gives each site the same read.
Who it's for
Use it if
- You're a site selection analyst building trade area packages and want a consistent built-form read per candidate.
- You screen candidates before commissioning a full trade area study, or compare several sites at once.
- You revisit existing locations in a portfolio review and want the same measures for each.
Skip it if
- You need measured population, household counts or foot traffic.
- You want a sales or footfall forecast.
- You need a brief by a fixed hour.
- You need spectral, thermal or occupancy analysis.
Questions from the analyst team
Is this a demographic or foot traffic dataset?
No. It describes built form: housing type, density, land use. It's a proxy, not a count of people or visits.
How fast does a brief arrive?
When you request it, timed to a usable pass over the site. We don't give a fixed turnaround.
How do we check it against our own read?
Pick a few candidates you already know on the ground and compare the brief with what you see. If a class looks wrong, send it back and we'll go through the imagery with you.
Does it plug into our GIS or site approval workflow?
There's no direct integration. The GeoJSON loads in a desktop GIS and the CSV opens in a spreadsheet. The PDF can go into a package.
Can we use a drive-time polygon instead of a radius?
The offer here is a radius. If your trade areas are drive-time shaped, ask us and we'll tell you what we can do.
Who owns the briefs, and can we share them?
The candidate sites you send stay yours. Use of the files and the licence on the imagery behind them go in the agreement before the first brief.
How is it priced?
By the number of sites and the size of the radius, quoted after we've seen the list. There's no price list on this page.
Can it profile locations we already operate?
Yes. Send existing stores as sites and you get the same brief to compare against your candidates.
Send the candidate list.
Give us the sites and a radius for each. We'll scope the briefs from there.