Ground
Satellite or flat colour
Same area, one switch: favour speed or favour looks.
Lotuz Arch
Lotuz GISUrban context and terrain inside SketchUp
Frame an area on the map and get building blocks, roads at real widths, green areas and terrain — each layer on its own tag.
$40/ year
Lotuz Arch yearly — unlocks Sync, GIS and Max dashboard.
Requires: SketchUp 2025+ · Windows
Inside SketchUp
A real urban area, imported in minutes
Satellite ground, blocks, roads and green areas — each on its own tag.
Land
Fifteen land types
Split from OSM tags, each with its own colour and tag.
A real urban area, imported in minutes
Imported with Lotuz GIS
Roads
Width from real data
Reads OSM width and lane tags, with sidewalks and medians.
Buildings
Low apart from tall
Nine-metre threshold; merge or keep separate as you prefer.
Ground
Satellite or flat colour
Same area, one switch: favour speed or favour looks.
Land
Fifteen land types
Split from OSM tags, each with its own colour and tag.
Roads
Width from real data
Reads OSM width and lane tags, with sidewalks and medians.
Buildings
Low apart from tall
Nine-metre threshold; merge or keep separate as you prefer.
Real captures
Shot from the live plugins
No mock marketing UI — real SketchUp / 3ds Max / Photoshop panels from Lotuz workflows.
Audience
Who it is for
Urban design and planning
You need the blocks, roads and parcels around the site to place a proposal in its real context, instead of modelling boxes by hand off a satellite image.
Client presentations
Build the context in one sitting: satellite ground, green areas, water, low and tall buildings already separated so you can toggle them while presenting.
Site analysis
The model carries real coordinates, so shadows follow the actual latitude and longitude. Sections through terrain come from elevation data rather than guesswork.
Students and interns
Read a site quickly: roads by class, land by function, each on its own tag.
Workflow
How you work — step by step
- 01
Pick an area
Open the map and drag a rectangle around the site — or type latitude, longitude and a radius if you already have coordinates.
- 02
Choose the mode
Flat for urban studies, or 3D terrain when the slope actually matters.
- 03
Turn on what you need
Three blocks: ground and land, roads, buildings. Switch off what you will not use and the model stays light.
- 04
Import
The job runs in the background with a live log, and can be cancelled if you framed the wrong area.
- 05
Drop your project in
Every layer arrives as its own tagged group. Hide what is in the way, bring it back for the presentation, and push it on to 3ds Max with Lotuz Sync if you need to.
Deep dive
Features in depth
▸
Three open data sources
Geometry comes from OpenStreetMap via Overpass; the backdrop is ESRI’s satellite imagery layer; elevation is decoded from Terrarium terrain tiles using (R×256 + G + B/256) − 32768.
▸
Land split by function
Three levels of detail: two coarse groups, fifteen types from OSM tags, or one multi-coloured surface per group when you only need the big picture. Nine functional groups toggle independently: residential, commercial, retail, industrial, education, parking, quarry, railway and civic.
▸
Roads at their real width
Nine road classes from motorway to track. “Real OSM” mode reads the width and lane tags where they exist; only untagged roads fall back to the three widths you set. Sidewalks follow the selected roads, and dual carriageways get a median.
▸
Low buildings kept apart from tall ones
The threshold defaults to nine metres, and buildings with no height data go in the low group. Merge each group into a single block to keep the model light, or keep them separate when you need to edit.
▸
Imagery that cannot blow up the file
Over a large area, unlimited satellite imagery can reach tens of megabytes for nothing. Caps of 2000, 4000 and 8000 px are built in, or switch to flat colour when all you need is massing.
▸
It remembers what you already imported
The model records the areas you have brought in. Pick an overlapping one and you are warned, instead of quietly stacking two copies of the same context.
Specs
In numbers
- Plan
- Lotuz Arch Pro — annual subscription
- Geometry source
- OpenStreetMap via Overpass
- Imagery
- ESRI satellite layer, or flat colour
- Elevation
- Terrarium terrain tiles (open data)
- Modes
- Flat · 3D terrain
- Land types
- 15 from OSM tags · 9 groups you can toggle
- Road classes
- 9, plus sidewalks and medians
- Defaults
- Sidewalk 3 m · corner radius 5 m · tall-building threshold 9 m
- Imagery cap
- Unlimited / 8000 / 4000 / 2000 px
- Output
- Tagged groups in the model, geolocated
FAQ
Common questions
Where does the data come from?+
Geometry from OpenStreetMap, imagery from ESRI’s satellite layer, elevation from open terrain tiles. It is open data; how detailed it gets depends on OSM coverage where you are working.
Is coverage good in Vietnam?+
Major cities have solid road and building coverage. Rural areas are sparser on building footprints — still enough for massing and site reading, but do not expect every house.
What if I import the wrong area?+
Cancel while it is running. If it already finished, each layer is its own group, so deleting the right groups clears it.
Does it consume credits?+
No. GIS comes with the time-based Arch Pro plan; nothing is metered per use.
How big should the area be?+
The site plus one or two surrounding blocks covers most projects. Anything larger is slow and loads the model with geometry you will not use.
Can I edit the result?+
Yes — it is ordinary SketchUp geometry, not locked objects. Edit, delete and paint it like any other group.
How it works
Three steps, about a minute
No map account, no API key, no per-request fee.
01
Pick the area
Click on the map, or type the site latitude / longitude.
02
Set the radius
300–500 m is usually enough for one building. Expand later if needed.
03
Import
The plugin fetches data and builds layered massing.
Output
Each layer separate
Layer names ready to toggle for presentations — not one fused blob.
Buildings
Map-based massing; height from recorded storeys when available.
Roads & sidewalks
Major and minor axes, sidewalks and curbs as separate types.
Trees & parcels
Parks, residential, commercial — classified from source data.
3D terrain
Real elevation for slopes, or flat ground when you do not need it.
Satellite imagery
Real basemap with selectable resolution to control file weight.
Real coordinates
Lat/long on the model so sun shadows match the site.
Controls
Heavy or light, your call
The same site can be rough massing for a camera view, or detailed for documentation.
Build modeFlat ground (fast) or real 3D terrain
Parcel detailRough 2 groups, or ~15 map land-use types
Road widthSingle plane · from source data · or custom
Sidewalks & curbsWidth in metres, corner radius
BasemapSatellite (pick resolution) or solid color
High-rise thresholdStorey count to split tall vs low buildings
Honest limits
Know this before you rely on it
- !
Data varies by region
Dense city cores are usually complete; suburbs may lack buildings or heights. The plugin builds what the map has — it does not invent.
- !
Heights are estimates when missing
If storeys are not recorded, the plugin estimates. Verify when you need drawing accuracy.
- !
Large radii get heavy
Start at 300–500 m. Multi-kilometre areas are slow and bog SketchUp down.
- !
Credit the data source
Data from OpenStreetMap (ODbL) — include “© OpenStreetMap contributors” when you publish images.
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