Detect the building automatically AIAI feature

Shading is what separates a yield estimate that survives contact with the roof from one that doesn't, and the work of drawing the neighbour's house and the oak next door is the tedious part of every 3D plan.

Building AI does that first pass for you. It reads the area around the project address, brings in the surrounding buildings and trees, and drops them into your scene as ordinary objects you can move, resize or delete.

Before you start

• Building AI is switched on per workspace. It's off until someone turns it on for you — ask your Reonic account manager. There's no self-service toggle in Settings.
• The project needs an address. Detection works outward from the project's location, so a project without one has nothing to search around.
• Coverage varies by area. Detection draws on public map data, which is dense in most European towns and sparse in some rural and non-European areas. Where there's no data, the option reports itself unavailable rather than importing nothing silently.

Import structures when you start planning

1. Open the offer and enter the solar planning flow.
2. In the setup wizard, find the 3D with Building AI tile. It checks the area and resolves to Available or Not available.
3. If it's available, continue to the structure-selection step. You'll see two cards: Buildings and Trees, each with the number found.
4. Both are selected by default. Deselect either if you only want one.
5. Click Next. The structures are added to your scene.

If both counts are zero, the step won't let you continue — there's nothing to import, and drawing the surroundings yourself is the path.

Add them mid-edit instead

You don't have to decide at the start.

1. In the 3D editor, find the layers strip.
2. Click the Building AI tile.
3. Confirm when asked, and the structures are fetched and imported.

If you've already imported them, clicking the tile switches the view to show them instead.

Adjust what came in

Imported buildings and trees behave exactly like ones you drew yourself. Move them, resize them, change a height, delete the ones that aren't there any more.

In the sidebar you'll find the Building AI panel with separate Buildings and Trees sections, each with its count and controls to add or remove. At the top of the panel, Deactivate Building AI removes everything it imported in one go, leaving anything you drew yourself untouched.

Re-importing won't duplicate what's already there.

Things to know

• Heights are estimates unless the source says otherwise. Where a real height is available it's used; otherwise it's derived from floor count, and otherwise a default stands in. Check anything close enough to shade the array.
• Trees are simplified deliberately. Each becomes a broadleaf or conifer at a default height. Adjust individually where a specific tree matters to the result.
• Hedges, treelines and woodland aren't imported. Only individual trees come through, so a boundary hedge or a stand of woodland is something you add yourself.
• Roof shapes are approximated to gabled, standard or flat. A complex roof on a neighbouring building arrives as the closest of the three.
• Buildings with internal courtyards aren't modelled as such. The outer outline is used, so a building with a hole in the middle comes in solid.
• In dense areas you may get a lot at once. Every building in range is imported without a cap, so an urban terrace can arrive as dozens of objects. Delete what doesn't affect your roof.
• This is Portal only. There's no equivalent in the mobile app.
• Residential and commercial both support it. On commercial projects the search area follows the imagery area you've set, rather than being fixed.

Last updated on September 9, 2026