Canvas – Creating and Managing

For high-level information about the SCALGO Live Canvas, please consult the product page. Some of the topics on this page are also referenced in the canvas getting started video

To select an existing canvas, or create a new one, you need to switch to the Canvas tab in the left sidebar. The currently-active canvas will be shown on top. 

Create your canvas, and see the list of your canvasses through the canvas tab in the left sidebar.

You can create folders to better organize your canvasses.

Basic canvas usage

Once you activate a canvas a couple of things will happen:

  • The canvas toolbar will appear on the map,  this is used for drawing and editing the canvas.
  • The canvas object list becomes available in a tab on the right sidebar. It is not activated by default.
  • The top of the canvas tab in the left sidebar will highlight the selected canvas.

SCALGO Live with an activated canvas. Notice the toolbar and the activated canvas tab in the right sidebar. 

The canvas objects list

In the right sidebar you will find the Canvas tab which gives you a list of all the objects in your canvas. You can create groups for organizing your objects.

The right sidebar showing some objects and groups.

When hovering the mouse on an item in this list you can:

  • Toggle the visibility of the object
  • Zoom to the object
  • Drag the object to a different position in the hierarchy
  • Delete the object
  • Access a menu with additional options, including:
    • Buffering the object: provided a distance we can produce a polygon that is a buffered version of the original object - a polygon whose extent is bigger than the original object by the provided distance. This may not be available for all objects. 
    • Convert the object type to something else. Some special object types (e.g. imported watershed queries from the watershed tool) disallow the editing of the individual vertices, but by converting these objects into standard areas, you can edit the vertices again. Beware: there may be too many vertices to comfortably edit by hand.
Canvas settings and sharing

Canvas settings

In the selected canvas area in the left sidebar, you can access additional canvas options and manage sharing of your canvas. The additional canvas options (in the gear menu) allow you to:

  • Change the name and description of the canvas
  • Delete the canvas
  • Duplicate the canvas (sharing settings are not duplicated)
  • Get the link to the canvas webservice for integrating the canvas with GIS
Showing the additional settings for the canvas.

Sharing

In the active canvas dialog you can also access the sharing settings where you can share your canvas with other SCALGO Live users.

Canvas sharing button highlighted in red.

When you share a canvas with a user, you can choose to give the user full access to the canvas. With this they can edit and draw on the canvas, but also manage sharing and delete the canvas. You can also choose to give users read-only access to a canvas. If you have read-only access to a canvas you can only see the canvas, but not edit and draw on it. You are also unable to share or duplicate it.

When you share a canvas with a user, they will receive an email notification.