Property · Click a point

Property terrain report for any New Zealand section

The property terrain report is a multi-page PDF site analysis for one New Zealand parcel, or several selected together, built from LINZ LiDAR elevation data: shaded relief, contours, slope and aspect breakdowns, elevation statistics and a checklist of the council and title records it does not replace.

Use it as a pre-purchase land check or as the first page of a design brief, before you pay for a topographic survey. A field survey typically costs NZ$1,600–4,500 and takes weeks to book. This report is ready in minutes and tells you whether the ground is worth that spend.

See every page of a finished report →

Property Report on Mt Iron, Wānaka. The walkthrough below shows how this was made.

Free to run · pay to download

See the full result on the map free, with no account. Download the PDF report, and a data ZIP of the parts you choose (boundary, elevation GeoTIFF, contours, aerial photo, terrain surface, STL) with a pass: NZ$49 for 7 days or NZ$299 for 12 months, one-off, GST included, not a subscription. Every download on the site is included while the pass lasts.

Open Property Report on the map →Pass prices and what’s included

Who uses this

Section and lifestyle-block buyers. Compare the terrain on every block on the shortlist before paying for reports on one.
Architects and designers. Get the ground shape, slope classes and aspect at brief stage.
Real estate agents and vendors. Answer the slope and drainage questions buyers ask.

When to use it

You want something to send to a client, a builder or a family member rather than a screen.
You are shortlisting rural or lifestyle blocks and want the same terrain summary for each.
You need a record of what the ground looked like on the LiDAR capture date.

Which tool for your job

Property Report is one step in a bigger question. These are the jobs it helps with, and the tools that go with it.

If you’re working on buying a section or lifestyle block

What is the ground like, and how does it compare with the others on my list?

1.Property — Selects the legal parcel so every other tool is clipped to the boundary.
2.Property Report (this tool) — A PDF with contours, slope, aspect, winter sun, drainage, elevation and old aerial photos for that parcel, or several selected together.
3.Saved Properties — Up to five places side by side: elevation, slope, winter sun and drainage.
4.Flow Paths — Where water will run and pond across the block in heavy rain.
5.Aerial History — Old aerial photos back to the 1930s in places: past slips, filled gullies and streams that have since gone.
6.Elevation Change — Where LiDAR was flown twice: whether the ground has slipped, been filled or been cut since.

How to use it

Open Property Report and click inside the parcel, or search its address.
Wait for the preview. Larger parcels take longer because more terrain is loaded.
Choose Generate report (PDF) for the report, or Data bundle (ZIP) and tick the parts you want: boundary, elevation GeoTIFF, contours, aerial photo, a catchment outline if a Catchment result is on the map, a LandXML or 3D DXF terrain surface, and an STL. The panel shows each part's detail and the ZIP's size before you download.

Step by step: Mt Iron, Wānaka

We build the full terrain report for the Mt Iron reserve parcel.

1.Open Property Report and click inside the parcel, or search its address. The panel confirms the parcel and its area before anything is built.

2.Generate report (PDF) builds the report in the browser. The cover names the title and leads with four figures: area, elevation range, mean slope and mid-winter sun.

3.The slope page (page 4): mean slope 17.2°, with 26.6% of the reserve under 10° and 22.8% over 25°. A wide parcel like this one gets the map across the top and the figures below.

4.The winter sun page (page 6): on 21 June the reserve averages 6 h 7 min of direct sun, first sun at 8:37 am and last at 4:52 pm, and 89.6% of it gets three hours or more.

What it showed

Page 2 sums the report up in five findings. The other pages cover contours, aspect, drainage, hillshade and elevation statistics, then two pages list the official records the report does not replace, with where to check each.
Data bundle (ZIP) gives you the parcel's files for GIS and CAD in one ZIP: tick the boundary, elevation GeoTIFF, contours, aerial photo, terrain surface or STL, and the panel shows the size first.

Screenshots from NZ Elevation Tools. Aerial imagery from LINZ Basemaps. Sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed by Environment Southland, Otago Regional Council and Queenstown-Lakes District Council for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Try it on Mt Iron, Wānaka →

How it works

The parcel boundary is fetched from the LINZ cadastre and the LINZ elevation tiles are loaded in your browser for its extent, at the finest zoom that fits. Contours, slope, aspect and elevation statistics are computed on that terrain and clipped to the boundary.

Each page is drawn in your browser and our server assembles them into a PDF, with the LiDAR survey and its licensor named on the attribution page.

Where LINZ aerial photo surveys cover the parcel, an aerial history page shows up to four of them, oldest to newest, with the boundary drawn on each and the council that licensed each photo named.

The closing checklist lists the records a terrain report cannot stand in for: the title, the district plan, council hazard maps, the property file and a LIM, linked to the council's own viewer where one is known.

The data ZIP is built on the server from one LiDAR grid: the GeoTIFF as it is, and the contours, terrain surface and STL thinned from it. The aerial photo is read from the original LINZ photo files. CAD and raster files are in NZTM2000, GIS and web files in WGS84. A README and manifest.json list every file with its coordinate system, vertical datum, units, detail, source, licence and licensor. A ZIP holds up to 44 MB. A part that would go over that, fails, or can't be built in the time one ZIP has is left out, the README says which and why, and the rest still download.

Reading the results

Slope classes are given as a share of the parcel. Ground under about 10 degrees is generally buildable without major earthworks; above 20 degrees expect retaining and geotechnical input.

Aspect is where each face points. North-facing shares matter for winter sun in New Zealand.

Elevation statistics are relative to the LiDAR datum, which is close to mean sea level.

Limits and warnings

A terrain report is not a survey, a geotechnical report or a planning assessment. It shows the ground shape on the LiDAR capture date only.
Where 1 m LiDAR has not been flown, the national 8 m elevation model fills in. It was interpolated from 20 m map contours and is not fit for site-scale decisions. The PDF does not say which model each part came from; the data bundle reports the share.
Parcels larger than the free area limit are refused. Draw a smaller area with the other tools instead.

Data and attribution

The report’s maps and figures come from the LINZ elevation tiles: LINZ’s national bare-earth elevation model (LiDAR where it has been flown, the 8 m model elsewhere), stored in 0.1 m steps, read in your browser at the finest zoom that fits the parcel (cells of about 0.5 m on a small section, coarser on a large block), over LINZ Basemaps aerial photos. The data bundle’s contours and GeoTIFF are built on our server from the LINZ national 1 m LiDAR bare-earth model, with LINZ coastal LiDAR adding the seabed where it has been flown.

Elevation and cadastral data is sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Copyright in each LiDAR survey belongs to the body that commissioned it — a regional or district council, Waka Kotahi, NIWA and around thirty others — rather than to LINZ, which hosts and processes the national dataset. Every file exported from this site names the licensors whose surveys cover the area, and anything you publish from those files carries the same attribution requirement. See https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-services/data/licensing-and-using-data/attributing-elevation-or-aerial-imagery-data

Questions

Is this a substitute for a topographic survey?

No. It shows the ground as the LiDAR recorded it, which is good enough to decide whether a site is worth pursuing and to start concept design. Consent drawings, boundary work and engineering design still need a licensed surveyor and, on steep or unstable ground, a geotechnical engineer.

What is in the data bundle?

A ZIP of the parts you tick: the parcel boundaries, the elevation model as GeoTIFF, contours (GeoJSON, KML, Shapefile, DXF), the aerial photo as GeoTIFF, a LandXML or 3D DXF terrain surface, an STL, and a catchment outline if you ran the Catchment tool. CAD and raster files are in NZTM2000, GIS files in WGS84, and a README and manifest.json list each file's coordinate system, datum, detail, source and licensor. The PDF is a separate download.

Can I see the report before paying?

Yes. The preview is built on screen for free. Downloading the PDF or the bundle needs a pass.

Ready to try it?

Open Property Report on the map →

Free to use, no account. The maps and figures are worked out in your browser; our server puts the PDF together and builds the bundle’s files. Downloading the results needs a pass: see prices.

Missing something you need? Suggest a feature or ask about custom work.