Build your map
Generate buildings, paths and terrain
Select a real-world area and create editable places, roads, walkways, land and water.
Choose the area
- Open Map settings and set the venue location. Search for your venue if you have not placed it yet.
- Choose the floor to populate, then open Generate from map in Background map settings.
- Choose Draw polygon and click or tap around your boundary. Live edges show the shape as you draw. Close it by clicking the first point, choosing Finish area or pressing Enter. Undo point or Backspace removes the last point; Escape cancels. Pan and zoom while drawing. For keyboard placement, pan the map with arrow keys and use Add point at map centre. Rectangle mode uses two opposite corners.
- You can also enter the centre latitude, centre longitude, width and height. Press Enter or leave a field to apply it. These fields move or resize your polygon while preserving its shape. Show selected area fits the map around the selection.
Choose what to generate
| Feature | What you get |
|---|---|
| Buildings | Normal polygon spaces with linked places, labels and editable cards. Choose Space, Anchor store or Food/dining styling. Building pieces from the same source share a place. |
| Roads | Editable road paths with rounded joins and white centre dashes. Set the road width before generating. |
| Walkways & trails | Editable walkway or trail paths. Choose a walkway width; trails use up to 1.4 metres. |
| Land & greenery | Editable ground shapes for mapped parks, woodland, grass, sand and land uses, plus a neutral base clipped around water. |
| Water | Editable blue water areas following mapped coastlines, rivers and lakes. Islands and holes are retained. |
| Trees | Editable leafy trees, pines and shrubs in mapped woodland, with varied heights, greens and rotations. Choose Sparse (up to 160), Natural (360) or Lush (600). Trees are 2.8–8 metres tall; shrubs are 0.7–1.6 metres. They stay clear of buildings, paths, water and one another. Positions are decorative rather than surveyed. |
Buildings use the same place templates and styles as the polygon tool. The generation preview also uses the drawing canvas for the same colours, subtle outlines, rounded paths and road dashes. Default block heights match the selected style. Use mapped heights is off by default. You can change the height or enable Use mapped heights when available for approximate real-world heights; missing source heights use your fallback height. The current maximum height is 100 metres. Generated names are placeholders—rename places and complete their cards before publishing.
Create a natural landscape outline
Draw your own polygon to use its exact outline. For a shuffled organic piece of landscape, choose a rectangle and set Map outline to Natural edge. Shuffle outline tries a different silhouette inside your selection; the blue line previews the shape immediately. Choose Preview generation to see the result. Land and water follow the outline, roads end inside it, and buildings crossing the edge are left out so they stay whole.
- To reshape an existing import, open Generate from map and choose Shape existing map. The tool fits the visible generated objects on this floor.
- Shuffle outline until you like the shape, or adjust the area with Draw polygon, Rectangle or the centre and size fields. A drawn polygon uses your exact boundary and turns off shuffling until you select a rectangle again. The preview shows the cut and counts objects that will be reshaped or removed.
- Choose Apply outline. Manual objects, hidden objects and other floors stay. A place is removed only when its last linked object is removed. Undo restores both the previous shape and its place information.
Preview, generate and edit
- Choose Preview generation to load the selected area. Review the overlay, object counts and any warnings.
- Changing the area or feature settings clears the preview. Preview again before generating. If the service fails, retry; the draft stays unchanged.
- Leave Hide background after generating checked to create a standalone map. This turns off the background in both the editor and the next publication. You can turn either background setting on again later.
- Choose Generate objects. The editor fits the imported area. Use Undo to remove the whole generation, or Redo to restore it, including its places and background choice.
- Select a building to edit its normal place information, category, shape or dimensions. Roads, paths, land and water use the existing object controls. Trees use the decoration controls, so you can move, resize, duplicate or remove them.
- Save changes, check Preview, then publish when ready. Saving alone does not change the public map.
Previously imported features on the same floor are skipped, including edited features. To import one again, delete all its imported pieces first. If an older import has buildings without places, open Generate from map and use Convert existing buildings to places; their footprints stay in position and the conversion is undoable.
Start over after generating
- If you just generated the area, choose Undo in the drawing toolbar or press Ctrl/⌘ Z. The whole generation, including its linked places, is one undoable edit.
- For an older import, open Map settings and choose Remove Generated Objects. This clears imported shapes on every floor and places no longer used by another object. Manual drawings, guides and reference images stay.
- To restart the entire draft, choose Clear All Map Content in Map settings. This removes objects, places, guides and reference images on every floor while keeping the venue, floors, location and map settings.
- Confirm the action, then Save. Undo can restore the draft while the editor remains open. A published map stays unchanged until you publish the cleared draft.
Source credits stay with the map
Generated shapes come from OpenFreeMap’s OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap data. The info button starts collapsed; open it to see the credits, licence and download of generated shapes. When the background map is visible, these use its existing info control. Without a background map, use Map data and licences above the Maphere logo. Both let you download the visible generated shapes under the Open Database License. The download excludes private references, hidden objects, manually drawn objects and place content.