Terrain shows how your site slopes, so you can test grading, building pads, and cut and fill before you commit to a design. When terrain won't load or your buildings sit at the wrong height, find the problem below for the cause and the fix.

Terrain needs a project boundary. Until you draw one, the Terrain app shows "Draw a project boundary to enable terrain." and the Enable Terrain switch is off. Click Edit Boundary, draw the boundary, then turn on Enable Terrain.

Then pick a mode:

If the project has no projection origin, Giraffe uses Fixed Surface Terrain even when you pick Editable Terrain.

If Giraffe shows "Project bounds are too large to fetch tiles," your project covers too much ground for Giraffe to load terrain. No terrain loads for the project. Draw a smaller project boundary, or lower Tile buffer in Terrain Options, to load terrain.

To stop one geometry from following the ground, turn off its Drape on Terrain property in the Property Palette.

Check that terrain is on: open the Terrain app and turn on Enable Terrain. The tile limit counts the ground in Tile buffer too, so a large buffer can push a project over the limit.

When terrain is on, Giraffe can place geometries on the ground surface or at their own base height. Check the terrain options:

To set a building on a level pad, use a building pad instead of moving the building.

Giraffe only loads terrain around your project boundary. To load more ground around it, open Terrain Options in the Terrain app and raise Tile buffer. It starts at 0 and goes up to 500.

With Editable Terrain, Clip to site boundary is on by default, so terrain only shows inside your boundary. Turn it off to see the surroundings.

Clip to site boundary, Project features onto terrain, Show terrain at real-world datum, and Color terrain only work with Editable Terrain. Switch the mode to Editable Terrain to use them.

Turn on Show terrain at real-world datum in Terrain Options to show terrain at its real elevation. Terrain mesh offset only nudges the terrain up or down by up to 5 m so it's easier to see. It doesn't fix the elevation.

A building pad levels the ground under a building so Giraffe can work out cut and fill.

Any polygon on a visible layer works as a pad when its Cut and Fill property is on. If you leave Elevation Datum empty, Giraffe uses the ground height at the middle of the pad. Use Optimize selected to find the level that balances cut and fill.

Giraffe pauses terrain and cut and fill calculations while you edit a block. A block can hold building pads, and its definition is mid-change until you save, so Giraffe waits instead of calculating from a half-edited block.

Click Save & Exit or Exit in the Editing block bar at the top left of the map. The Terrain app recalculates with your saved block.

Giraffe's terrain comes from Mapbox elevation data. You can't load your own elevation file, survey, or contours as editable terrain. To show your own survey or contours, upload them as a vector layer for reference, or upload a 3D model as context.

Visual resolution in Terrain Options changes how fine the terrain mesh is, from Low (4 m) to Ultra (0.25 m). The elevation data underneath stays the same, so a higher setting makes the surface smoother and doesn't add accuracy or load missing ground. To load more ground around your site, raise Tile buffer instead.

Turning off Enable Terrain removes terrain from the project, so your design no longer sits on the ground. To hide the ground for a moment, hide the terrain layer in the Layer Palette instead.

Color terrain colors the ground by how much cut or fill it needs. It doesn't tint untouched terrain or show elevation bands. Use Coloration intensity to make the colors stronger. To see heights, check Elevation Summary in the Terrain app.