How to Prepare Your Plans

Quick-Reference Checklist

Print this checklist and give it to your designer. The more items ticked, the more accurate your compliance report.

The 3 Annotations That Matter Most

Based on extensive testing across hundreds of plan assessments, these three annotations have the single biggest impact on report accuracy. If your designer can only add a few things, prioritise these:

Drawing Quality

Best: Export PDF directly from CAD

• In AutoCAD, use the built-in “DWG to PDF.pc3” plotter (not “Microsoft Print to PDF”). This preserves all line work and text as scalable vectors.
• In Revit, use Export → PDF (built-in) or print to the Bluebeam or Adobe PDF driver.
• In ArchiCAD, use File → Save as PDF.
• The resulting PDF should have selectable text — try clicking on a dimension label. If you can highlight the text, the PDF is vector.

Acceptable: High-resolution scan or image

• If you must scan printed plans, use 300 DPI minimum (400 DPI preferred). Scans below 200 DPI will have blurry dimension text that DesignSure may misread.
• Scan in colour if possible — grey-scale scans lose information from coloured annotations and line-weight distinctions.
• Ensure the page is straight and fully visible (no cropped edges, shadows, or skew).

Avoid: Low-quality copies

• Photos of plans taken with a phone camera — uneven lighting, perspective distortion, and low resolution make these unreliable.
• PDFs that have been emailed, printed, and re-scanned multiple times — each cycle degrades quality.
• Screenshots pasted into Word or PowerPoint and saved as PDF.

Accepted File Formats

• PDF (preferred) — export directly from your CAD software for best results
• JPG / JPEG — minimum 300 DPI recommended
• PNG — minimum 300 DPI recommended

Maximum 10 files, 30 MB total per submission.

Site Plan (Most Important)

The site plan is the most important drawing for siting compliance. It should clearly show:

Must be annotated (not scale-only):

• All boundary dimensions (frontage, depth, side boundaries). For irregular lots with multiple boundary segments, annotate each segment separately — DesignSure will sum them to get the total boundary length.
• All proposed setbacks — measured from the boundary to the external face of the wall (not the eave or gutter)
• The north point — true north, clearly labelled, placed prominently
• Total site area (or sufficient dimensions to calculate it)
• Label each boundary with its position and compass direction (e.g. “LEFT (WEST) BOUNDARY”, “FRONT BOUNDARY (SMITH STREET)”). This is the single most helpful annotation for accurate extraction — it eliminates orientation ambiguity.

Should be shown (labelled or dimensioned):

• Existing buildings on the lot (for additions — show existing footprint)
• Driveways, paths, paved areas (required for site coverage and permeability calculations)
• Car parking spaces with dimensions
• Private open space — annotate the area (m²) and the minimum dimension (m). If not labelled, the AI must calculate it from scale, which reduces confidence.
• Walls on boundaries — annotate length and height for EACH boundary separately (left and right are assessed independently under Reg 80)
• Fences — annotate fence height for EACH boundary separately (left, right, rear). Fence heights often vary across boundaries and are assessed independently under Regs 90-91. Fences above 2 m require setback assessment
• Neighbouring buildings — show adjoining dwellings on the site plan with:
  • Setback of each neighbour from the shared boundary (dimensioned, not just outline)
  • Neighbour habitable room windows labelled “HW” or “HRW” on the wall facing the shared boundary
  • Whether the neighbour is single or double storey
  • North-facing windows within 3m of the boundary (for Reg 82 solar access)
  This information is critical for Regs 81, 82, and 84. Without dimensioned neighbour setbacks, these regulations may return “Unable to Assess.”
• Eave-to-boundary distance — if the building has eaves, annotate the distance from the eave edge (not the wall face) to each side and rear boundary as a separate dimension from the wall setback. This is required for Reg 85 daylight compliance. If the building has a parapet or flat roof (no eaves), note “no eaves” on the elevation — DesignSure will use the wall setback as the eave-to-boundary distance.
• Front porches and verandahs — if a porch encroaches closer to the front boundary than the main dwelling wall, annotate both the porch setback and the porch height separately. Porches under 3.6m height may qualify for an encroachment exemption under Reg 74(3).
• Land survey plan (recommended) — if available, upload the original land survey plan. Survey plans provide precise NGL spot levels, boundary dimensions, and neighbouring building positions that significantly improve extraction accuracy, particularly for wall heights and neighbour setbacks.

Court, Close & Cul-de-Sac Lots

• Clearly label which boundary segment is the front (on the road reserve) vs the side boundaries. Court lots fan out from a short frontage at the court bowl — DesignSure may otherwise sum multiple boundary segments and overestimate the frontage.
• Annotate the frontage dimension separately from the side boundary lengths. The frontage is typically 10–20m (the short segment at the court bowl), while the side boundaries are much longer (40–80m).
• If the front boundary is curved, annotate the chord length (straight-line distance between the two front corners) as well as the arc length.
• Label left and right side boundaries explicitly — on fan-shaped lots, the left/right assignment may not be obvious from the drawing orientation.
• Annotate both the left side depth and right side depth separately, as they will differ significantly on most court lots.

Floor Plans

• Show all floor levels with overall external dimensions
• Annotate room labels clearly — DesignSure uses these to identify habitable rooms for overlooking and daylight provisions (Regs 81, 84, 85)
• Mark window and door locations, especially those facing boundaries
• For multi-storey buildings, provide separate floor plans for each level above ground. The AI compares ground and upper floor outlines to detect step-backs.
• Basements: DesignSure assesses storeys above natural ground level only. Basement plans are not required for the siting assessment. If your basement includes car parking, note the number of spaces in the supplementary data form.

Elevations

• Annotate wall heights from NGL to the top of the wall (not FL-CL / floor-to-ceiling). Wall height is measured to where the wall ends and the roof begins (eave/gutter line), not to the ridge.
• Show maximum building height from NGL to the ridge/highest point as a separate dimension
• Mark window sill heights and head heights (critical for overlooking — Reg 84)
• Show NGL datum line clearly labelled — inconsistent NGL references cause extraction errors
• Name each elevation with its compass direction (e.g. “North Elevation”, “South-East Elevation”). Ideally, also note which boundary it faces (e.g. “East Elevation — left side boundary”). This prevents DesignSure from assigning wall heights to the wrong boundaries.

Shadow Diagrams (Full Check)

Shadow diagrams are required for solar access and overshadowing provisions (Regs 82, 83, 95, 96).

• Show shadows cast by the proposed building at three times: 9am, noon, and 3pm on 22 September (spring equinox — the standard assessment date under the Building Regulations)
• Show the shadow on the site plan and on adjoining properties
• Include a north point consistent with the site plan
• Label the shadow outline at each time clearly (9am, noon, 3pm)
• Show the location of any north-facing habitable room windows on neighbouring dwellings within 3m of the boundary
• Show the location and area of any recreational private open space on neighbouring properties, with the unshaded area annotated at each time point
• Include fence shadows — fences contribute to overshadowing and should be included in the shadow analysis
• For additions/alterations, show both existing AND proposed shadows so DesignSure can assess whether the proposed works increase overshadowing

Additions & Alterations — Extra Requirements

When uploading plans for additions or alterations, DesignSure must distinguish between existing (retained) and proposed (new) building elements. The following guidance will improve your results:

Drawing convention — existing vs proposed

• Use a consistent drawing convention to distinguish existing from proposed work. Common conventions:
  • Solid grey fill = existing, basic outline = proposed (most common)
  • Green/coloured lines = new, black lines = existing
  • Dashed lines = existing/demolish, solid = proposed
  • Different line weights (heavier = proposed)
• Include a legend explaining which line style represents existing, proposed, and demolished elements
• Label proposed walls with “NEW” or “PROPOSED” where practical

Setbacks — measure to proposed walls

• Annotate setback dimensions from boundaries to the proposed (new) walls, not the existing building
• If the addition is at the rear and no new work is proposed at the front, annotate the existing front wall setback separately (label it “existing front setback”)
• For boundaries where both existing and proposed walls exist at different setbacks, annotate both and label which is which

Boundary walls — proposed only

• Annotate the length and height of any proposed new walls on or within 200mm of the boundary
• Existing walls on boundary that are being retained unchanged do not need separate annotation for the DesignSure assessment

Site coverage & permeability — show totals

• Include a site analysis table showing cumulative values (existing + proposed): total building footprint, site coverage %, permeability %, garden area
• These cumulative values are what the regulations assess, not just the proposed addition area

Shadow diagrams for additions

• Show both existing and proposed shadows separately so the assessment can determine whether the proposed works increase overshadowing
• If the existing building already overshadows the neighbour, the proposed works may still comply if they do not make the overshadowing worse

Visual Drawing Guide — What to Annotate

The table below summarises the key annotations DesignSure looks for on your plans. The more clearly these are marked, the higher the extraction confidence and the more accurate your compliance report.

Common Issues to Avoid

If Your Plans Don't Have Annotated Dimensions

DesignSure can still produce a report using your form-entered values. However:

• Every field where DesignSure found no annotation will be flagged as “Not confirmed by plans — form value used”
• You will be asked to confirm each unconfirmed field before proceeding to payment
• The report will note which values were confirmed by plan annotation and which were based on form entry only

For projects where building surveyor scrutiny is expected (new dwellings, Full Check provisions), we strongly recommend providing annotated plans.