Short answer

Take the photo from anywhere near the building — that gives you a point on the map. Then open the asset, go to the location section, and click Draw an area instead of leaving it as a point. The pin gets replaced with a polygon you sketch around the building's footprint. The asset record stays the same — just its geometry changes from ST_Point to ST_Polygon.

Detail

Civic.ly's default asset-capture flow is point-based — you photograph an asset and it lands on the map as a pin. That's the right shape for things like bins, signs, defibrillators, and individual play equipment. But it's the wrong shape for things that have meaningful footprint:

  • Depots, toilet blocks, storage units, office buildings — anything with walls.
  • Parks, playgrounds, pitches, allotments — anything bounded.
  • MUGAs, hard-surface courts, car parks.

For these you want the area on the map, not the pin, because the area communicates the asset's extent at a glance and (for parks/playgrounds) supports the location-tag-inheritance pattern for assets inside them. See How do map areas work, and how do location tags get inherited?.

The conversion workflow:

  1. Capture the asset as a point first — photograph it from anywhere nearby. Whichever way is easiest in the field.
  2. Open the asset record on the web app.
  3. Scroll to the location section. There's a Draw an area option alongside the point.
  4. Click it and sketch the polygon around the building/footprint by clicking each corner on the map. Double-click to close.
  5. Save. The asset's geometry flips from ST_Point to ST_Polygon.

You can also draw an area directly from the main map view (drawing tool → area), but the conversion flow above is the right one when you've already got an asset record from a field photo and just want to upgrade its geometry.

The alternative — drawing a fresh area on the map — is what you do for areas that don't have a single physical object to photograph (a park, a grass verge, a flower bed). Use the main map's drawing tool, draw the polygon, set the asset type and name, and save.

Grass verges and paths (e.g. for a grass-cutting round) are areas, not "paths". If you maintain verges or footpaths, draw each one as an area rather than trying to model it as a line — that's what makes it work as a schedulable asset for a weekly cut. Two ways in: draw the polygon straight on the map from the drawing tool, or (handy in the field) get whoever knows the round to photograph the verge as a point, upload it, then convert it to an area later. Either way, name it the way the team actually refers to it — "grass verge opposite Shell", "verge by the bypass" — not "Grass Verge 23", because that name is what shows up in the operative's task list. (There's a dedicated grass-verge asset type if you want the classification tidy.)

Watch-outs

  • Don't try to be perfect first time — the polygon is editable afterwards. Get the rough shape down and adjust later.
  • Areas can get in the way of point editing — when you're trying to nudge a point inside an area, the area's polygon overlay can block the click. Turn off the areas layer temporarily via the map's layer controls while you tweak points, then turn it back on.
  • Existing assets inside a newly-drawn area won't inherit the area's location tag automatically. The inheritance only fires when an asset is created inside the area. To backfill, drag each existing asset a fraction on the map and re-save — the inheritance runs on save.
  • The AI may guess the wrong type from a field photo — just rename/retype it. If you photograph a verge (or any area) and there's a bench, bin, tree or sign in shot, the AI will tend to classify it as that rather than the verge. It's fully editable afterwards: change the type and give it the right name once you've converted it to an area.
  • The location-comment field changes — point-uploaded assets show using map plotted location; map-drawn polygons show Using map drawn polygon. So you can tell at a glance how an asset was geometry-ed.