Planning Maps

The mapping feature is used to interact with customer planning maps as well as to view Base Station viewsheds and end points statistics.

Planning maps can be used to create proposed Base Stations and end points and are useful to visually identify expected coverage areas as well as calculating the predicted path quality for end points from the Base Stations modeled in the area.

Reset the map center and zoom

Refresh the contents of the map

Coverage: Show the map Coverage tool

Map Planning: Create, open or manage maps

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Creating Planning Maps

1. To create a map, select Create Planning Map from the Map Option button menu. This action will open a create planning maps form.

2. Enter a map name.

3. Selecting will open the local computer file explorer to select the desired planning map that has previously been created. For this example, the file “Customer_Location_mapversion” was selected. Click the “Import” button to import the planning map into the mapping tool.

4. Selecting “Show Map” results in the mapped objects being displayed on the planning map location. This encompasses all the end point pin locations in the respective view.

Planning Map Fields

Column	Description	Optional
Latitude	The latitude of the entry
Longitude	The longitude of the entry
Address	The address of the entry. This will be used to get the latitude and longitude if not specified.
PathQuality	The path quality value associated with the entry.
Description	A description for the entry.
Type	Either Device Or Base Station (If left blank Device type will be used).
Marker	The icon ID of a marker you wish to use instead of the default one.
Radius	The range of the Base Station in miles if the type selected is Base Station.
Height	The height of the Base Station in feet if the type selected is Base Station.
PQ Bstn 1 EUI	The EUI of the Base Station that gave the best path quality results for the given row
PQ Bstn 1 pathQuality	The path quality result provided by PQ Bstn 1 in decimal percentage.
PQ Bstn 1 Distance	The distance between the entry and PQ Bstn 1 in miles.
PQ Bstn 1 Height	The height of PQ Bstn 1 in feet.
PQ Bstn 1 Azimuth	The Azimuth heading between the entry and PQ Bstn 1 in decimal degrees.
PQ Bstn 2 EUI	The EUI of the Base Station that gave the second best path quality results for the given row
PQ Bstn 2 pathQuality	The path quality result provided by PQ Bstn 2 in decimal percentage.
PQ Bstn 2 Distance	The distance between the entry and PQ Bstn 2 in miles.
PQ Bstn 2 Height	The height of PQ Bstn 2 in feet.
PQ Bstn 2 Azimuth	The Azimuth heading between the entry and PQ Bstn 2 in decimal degrees.
PQ Bstn 3 EUI	The EUI of the Base Station that gave the third best path quality results for the given row
PQ Bstn 3 pathQuality	The path quality result provided by PQ Bstn 3 in decimal percentage.
PQ Bstn 3 Distance	The distance between the entry and PQ Bstn 3 in miles.
PQ Bstn 3 Height	The height of PQ Bstn 3 in feet.
PQ Bstn 3 Azimuth	The Azimuth heading between the entry and PQ Bstn 3 in decimal degrees.

Exporting Planning Maps

Planning Maps can be exported through the Planning Maps table. Simply select on a row by selecting on the name field. Then click the export button. This exports a map in the same format that it was imported so that it can be shared or re-imported. As part of the export, the best 3 Base Stations that contributed to the last Planning Map path quality calculation are included for each entry. This provides the path quality, distance, height, and Azimuth that was measured for that Base Station when compared to that map entry.

Planning Map Marker Images

Image	Marker ID
	bluecircle
	lightbluecircle
	yellowcircle
	greencircle
	lightgreencircle
	redcircle
	pinkcircle
	orangecircle
	lightorangecircle
	graycircle
	darkgraycircle
	lightgraycircle
	towergreen
	towerred
	towerblack
	towerblue
	towerorange
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Managing Planning Maps

Selecting “Manage Planning Maps” displays the planning maps summary table below.

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Measuring distance

The map provides the ability to quickly measure the distance between two points on the map. Click the button and then select "Measure Distance" from the menu to enable the feature.

Then select two points on the map and see the distance in miles between them. This disables all other clickable elements so that any two points can be selected without triggering other map features. Clicking close will remove the two markers, the line, and the distance dialog.

Base Station Deployment Planning

Using the planning maps a user can easily search for a structure to be used for a Base Station deployment.

First go to the Maps Tab and zoom into an area where coverage is needed to be deployed.

Click the layers button and select Structures. This will plot all available structures in the area.

Click the layers button again, then click Filter Structures. This allows filtering of the displayed structures to a particular company or a structure greater than a specified height. In the case below we filtered to see only American Tower Corp Structures greater than 100ft high.

The map will now show only the filtered towers.

This filtered set displays the structures that meet the deployment requirements.

Left clicking the tower will display a theoretical coverage of the tower. The coverage area displayed is a 10 mile Radius at the max structure height.

Once a desired structure is located, right click the structure to see more detailed information related to that structure.

Multiple Structures at the Same Location

Structures appearing at the same geographic location within 5 significant decimal places for latitude and longitude are now marked on the map with a footer image.

Hovering over a group of Structures displays a tooltip listing the Structures at that location. The first item in the tooltip shows the Structure that is visible in the Map.

Clicking on the item for any other Structure promotes that Structure to the top.

Planning Map Statistics

When a Planning Map is active, a statistics header is added to the map. This header shows Entry and Path Quality statistics for the Planning Map. The Entries statistic shows the breakdown of Devices and Base Stations included on the Planning Map. The Path Quality statistic shows threshold groupings by Path Quality of all Devices on the Map.

If the Devices layer is also enabled while a Planning Map is active, the Planning Map statistics header is merged with the Devices Statistics header. Icons at the bottom of the header allow navigating the two sets of statistics. See Device Statistics for more details.

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Coverage Tool

The Coverage Tool button launches a dialog that contains a search field for entering addresses or locations.

Once the search information is submitted by pressing the enter key or clicking the icon, the map shows a pin for the location and the estimated path quality to nearby Base Stations (See Path Quality below). The green areas on the map reflect areas of high quality radio reception.

Right-clicking on an empty area of the map provides a short cut for checking coverage. This creates a pin at the clicked location and opens the Location Information dialog. Selecting the Path Quality tab shows the estimated path quality to nearby Base Stations (See Path Quality below).

Coverage Layer

The Coverage Layer is designed to display predicted network coverage of Base Stations within a given area. The layer is comprised of all viewsheds corresponding to the Base Stations within the Map's viewport, and presented as green image overlays.

This layer is only enabled at zoom level 9 and higher and may require zooming in to view coverage, as dynamically indicated by the Map Layers icon:

- Available

- Unavailable

Once available, activate the Coverage Layer by first clicking the 'Map Layers' button, and then checking the 'Coverage' option.

When changes in either the location focus of the Map viewport or the zoom level are detected, a refresh is required to update the Coverage Layer's presentation, as indicated by a yellow emphasis outline and motion (not shown) of the 'Refresh Map' button:

The Coverage Layer supports the current coverage settings for path quality. These can be configured from the "Set Coverage Settings" option seen above. This allows configuration of a Base Station Classification filter and the current coverage mode. This will limit the Base Station coverage shown to only Base Stations with that classification and those based on the coverage mode being used.

The Coverage Layer's opacity can be adjusted via the 'Set Overlay Opacity' option from the menu shown above.

Path Quality

The path quality dialog shown in the lower left of the map after clicking on the map or executing a Coverage search, shows detailed information about the distance between the search location and the Base Station and reception quality expressed as a percentage. This percentage reflects the Fresnel clearance (line of site) between two points. This calculation uses an elevation database to determine how obstructions interfere with the line of site. Note: The zoom level of the map can be adjusted after the search to view the results with a different perspective. This may be required to see in-range Base Stations that are outside of the initial result view.

The pin plot for the selected location will also display a vector to each Base Station indicating the direction of coverage.

The following are different examples of line of sight path quality calculations:

And this is how the path quality results are displayed in the map:

Path Quality Settings

SenRa provides the ability to configure how path quality is calculated by allowing override of key inputs as well as control over which type of Base Station it is calculated for. Inputs overrides include Base Station height (feet) and radius (miles) , Device height (feet) and whether or not to include Helium Extended coverage. The Classification filter constrains which types of Base Stations the calculation is performed for. Customized settings are persisted across calculations to ensure a consistent planning experience.

Multiple Classifications

Path Quality Results

Path Quality Marker Colors

Path Quality Markers are generated for Planning Map entries that do not have a pre-defined marker. The markers are generated if the Calculate Path Quality check-box is selected during map creation or initiating a path quality calculation from the table.

Color	Meaning
	No coverage or path quality not calculated
	SenRa path quality between 0% and 25%
	SenRa path quality between 25% and 50%
	SenRa path quality between 50% and 75%
	SenRa path quality between 75% and 100%

LVN Base Station Filtering

Both Coverage and Path Quality support optionally filtering the displayed Base Stations to those that are privately or publicly owned. SenRa Support must enable this feature to access it. When enabled, a selection control appears in the Coverage Search and Path Quality interfaces. This control filters displayed Base Stations or Base Station data to either Owned Base Stations (private) or LVN Base Stations (public). Any owned Base Stations that are not a part of the LVN, will not be visible if the LVN filter is applied.

Coverage Tool

Path Quality

This is the Path Quality dialog shown by right-clicking anywhere on the map:

Proposed Entries Export

The Proposed Entries menu item provides options to export the proposed Base Stations within a planning map. Clicking the "All" option exports all proposed Base Stations. Clicking the "Selected" option exports the proposed Base Stations with displayed Viewsheds. This option is only available when a planning map is open and exports a file similar in format to the Base Station export.

Export Format

Column	Description
Site Id	The ID of the Base Station Site
Viewshed Name	The identifier for the proposed entry either the address entered at import or the description
Project	The project associated with the proposed entry
Company	The company associated with the proposed entry
Latitude	The Latitude of the proposed entry's geographic location in decimal degrees
Longitude	The Longitude of the proposed entry's geographic location in decimal degrees
Radius	The radius of the proposed entry's viewshed in miles
Viewshed ID	The ID of the proposed entry, this is the insert index into the planning map
Status	The deployment status of the proposed entry, this is always set to Exploring
Date Created	The date the proposed entry was added to the planning map
Unavailable Date	The date the proposed entry was marked as unavailable
Northeast Latitude	The Latitude of the northeastern corner of the area that the proposed entry covers, this is always 0 for proposed entries.
Northeast Longitude	The Longitude of the northeastern corner of the area that the proposed entry covers, this is always 0 for proposed entries.
Southwest Latitude	The Latitude of the southwestern corner of the area that the proposed entry covers, this is always 0 for proposed entries.
Southwest Longitude	The Longitude of the southwestern corner of the area that the proposed entry covers, this is always 0 for proposed entries.
Base Station	The EUI of the real Base Station associated with the proposed entry, this is always blank.
Notes	Notes included for the proposed entry, this is always blank.
Structure ID	The ID of the structure the proposed entry was created from.
Structure Height AGL (ft)	The height of the structure the proposed entry is associated with above ground level in feet.