Feasibility and exploration
Fast global or European source, or a synthetic demonstration. Never described as surveyed or field-verified.
Evidence method
Inspect the source before you inspect the answer.
Every useful SighThor result should explain what data drove it, what calculation ran, what failed and which judgement still belongs to a person or authority.
01 / Data grades
Preview, Enhanced and Verified mean different things.
A grade describes the source and its reviewed fitness. It does not describe the finding, the report lifecycle or permission to operate.
National or regional evidence
Published terrain or surface data with known resolution, datum, age, coverage, licence and attribution. Human review remains required.
Accepted project-specific source
A reviewer has confirmed the source metadata and fitness for this project. It is attributable and frozen with the evidence.
02 / UK source posture
Coverage and access are explicit by nation and source.
The table describes implemented product posture, not a promise that every source is configured or healthy in the current deployment. Project Data Health remains authoritative for a calculation.
| Source | Area | Grade | Native detail | Implementation posture | Analysis treatment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environment Agency DTM / DSM | England | Enhanced | 1 m products | Implemented; runtime needs a validated source-version manifest | Available where configured and covered |
| Welsh Government DTM / DSM | Wales | Enhanced target | 1 m COG products | Blocked: authoritative vertical datum unresolved | Preview fallback only; no inferred datum |
| Scottish LiDAR allowlist | Scotland | Enhanced where accepted | Coverage varies | Coverage-aware contract; metadata refresh required | Preview outside accepted coverage |
| OSNI surface model | Northern Ireland | Enhanced candidate | 40 cm DSM | Paid access not approved | Disabled; Preview alternative remains visible |
| Copernicus GLO-30 | UK / Europe | Preview | 30 m DSM | Public baseline contract | Acquisition basis and limitations travel with results |
| Project-specific upload | Selected project | Verified after review | Source dependent | Requires reviewer confirmation of coverage, CRS, datum, date and fitness | Never upgraded by file name alone |
Mapbox is used as visual basemap context and is not presented as the selected regulation-facing analysis terrain source.
03 / Deterministic chain
One frozen scene connects analysis, review and export.
A current result binds geometry and configuration to exact terrain or surface evidence, buildings and vegetation interpretation, source manifests, engine version, timestamps and hashes.
Provider evidence
Identity, publisher, kind, grade, resolution, CRS, datum, retrieval context, licence, attribution, warnings and evidence hash.
Calculation evidence
Input revision, frozen scene hash, result hash, engine version and typed success or failure outcome.
Human evidence
Reviewer actions, acknowledged limitations, attachments, signature and later submission or authority-decision record.
04 / Known limits
The beta states what it cannot decide.
The useful boundary is acceleration: assemble, calculate, expose uncertainty and prepare a traceable draft so a qualified person can review it faster.
- Geometric route visibility is not the whole legal VLOS assessment.
- Nominal DORI does not guarantee identification under field conditions.
- Buildings, vegetation and national datasets can be incomplete, old or unavailable.
- Official rules and source services change and require ongoing specialist ownership.