Elevations

Early access. Elevations are evolving. Your feedback shapes where this goes next. Behavior, defaults and settings may change as we learn from real use.

Terrain mode in the course builder draws contour lines on your course map. Choose Terrain at the start of the bar above the map. On a phone, choose it in the Course ▾ menu. The panel then shows three tabs:

Terrain: manage the elevation data and the points and areas you place.
Contours: choose how the contour lines look.
Layers

You can mix three ingredients:

Sampled terrain: Parkdly fetches public elevation data for your map area in one click.
Manual elevation points: drop signed +/− points on the canvas. Use them to adjust the surface where the sample looks wrong. You can also add terrain that the data provider cannot see, such as a new mound, a pit or an elevated Tee.
Flat areas: outline an area and level it to one height. Obviously flat ground, such as a parking lot or a building pad, then shows no contour lines.

What you get per plan

Every plan can open Terrain mode and look at the contours.

Free and Hobby: a one-time Preview elevation on each course. It samples real terrain once and shows the contours in the editor. You can then decide if automatic elevation is worth an upgrade. The preview is view-only. It stays in the editor. Share pages, caddie books and exports do not include it.
Club: manual elevation points. Contours render around the points you drop. Club also has the same one-time Preview elevation. It has no repeat automatic sampling.
Pro: full Sample terrain. You can pull real elevation data for the map area in one click and sample again when your map area changes. You can layer manual points and flat areas on top. Share pages, caddie books and exports include the terrain.

A preview is one view-only sample of your own course. Re-sampling, manual fine-tuning of the sampled surface, auto-filling hole elevation and showing terrain publicly all need Pro.

Where automatic sampling works

Automatic sampling uses public elevation data. The quality of that data varies by region. Some areas have sharp, detailed data, and the contours look smooth and accurate. Other areas have only coarse data. Contours drawn over coarse data would show grid lines that are not real terrain.

When the data for your course is too coarse, Parkdly hides the automatic contours and shows a banner in the Terrain tab. You can still drop manual elevation points. They render contours on a flat base, even when sampling is not usable.

We are working on higher-resolution sources, such as national LiDAR datasets. More courses will get sharp contours over time. If sampling does not work on your course today, it may improve in a future update.

Get started

Before you start, open a course in the course builder.

Choose Terrain at the start of the bar above the map. On a phone, use the Course ▾ menu.
On Pro, click Sample terrain. Parkdly pulls elevation data for the map area and draws the contour lines.
On Free, Hobby or Club, click Preview elevation. This samples real terrain once.
To keep re-sampling, refining and exporting terrain, upgrade to Pro from the prompt that appears.

To add a manual point, choose Add elevation point in the floating toolbar. Use Ctrl + scroll to set the point's radius. Then click the canvas. Manual points need Club or above.

Manual elevation points

Each manual point is a delta. It adds or subtracts elevation from the surface beneath it, and fades out smoothly to its edge. Two points next to each other do not stack. Each keeps its own depth.

Select a point on the canvas to:

Change its height by one meter at a time with the +/− stepper in the callout at the top of the canvas.
Drag the handle to resize its radius.
Drag the dot to move it.
Right-click the dot for Duplicate point or Delete Point.
Press Cmd/Ctrl + C, then Cmd/Ctrl + V, to copy and paste.

The Terrain tab lists every point under Points & areas. Click a point to select it and bring it into view. Its height and radius then show in the tab. Unselect takes you back to the list.

To delete several points at once, tick them, or tick a whole section with its header checkbox. Then choose Actions → Delete selected. One undo brings them all back.

All edits use the standard undo and redo (Cmd/Ctrl + Z and Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Z).

Flat areas

Real courses have flat ground, such as parking lots, buildings and greens. Elevation data often draws contours across it anyway. A flat area levels everything inside an outline to one height. Flat areas need Pro, because they remove contour lines from a sampled surface. Club has no sampled surface for them to level.

In Terrain mode, choose Add flat area in the floating toolbar.
Click the map to outline the area. Each click adds a corner.
Press Enter, or click Finish, to level the area.

The height starts at the average terrain inside the outline, so one action is usually enough. Contour lines inside the area disappear. The edge blends into the surrounding terrain over an adjustable edge blend distance, so it does not form a cliff.

Select a flat area on the canvas to:

Drag its corner handles to reshape the outline. Use Add points to add more corners.
Drag the area itself to move the whole outline. You can also nudge it with the arrow keys: 0.5 m per press, or 5 m with Shift.
Use the Raise / lower stepper in the callout at the top of the canvas. It cuts or fills the area one meter at a time, relative to the natural terrain around it.
Drag the round handle just outside the area to set the edge blend. The shaded band shows how far the transition reaches. Drag the handle back onto the outline for a hard edge.
Right-click it and choose Delete Flat Area.

If flat areas overlap, click the selected one again to select the next one underneath.

While an area is selected, the Terrain tab also shows the height and edge blend, so you can type the numbers. The tab lists every flat area. Click one to select it.

Nothing is drawn on top of the area, so the contours you are flattening stay visible while you adjust them.

Inside a flat area, the flat height wins. Manual elevation points that overlap the area do not show through. Flat areas survive terrain re-sampling and follow the standard undo and redo. They carry over when you copy a course. They render in share pages, caddie books and exports like the rest of your terrain.

Auto-fill a hole's elevation change

Before you start, sample terrain on Pro, or place manual points that cover the Tee and the Target. A one-time preview does not feed auto-fill.

Open a Hole's Hole details panel.
Find the Elevation change card.
Click Auto-fill from terrain below the field.

Parkdly reads the elevation at the Tee and the Target and writes the difference into the field. With Layouts, the card has one field per Layout, each with its own auto-fill. The value shows in your course's unit (meters or feet).

Display settings

The Contours tab, next to the Terrain tab, controls how the contour lines render:

Interval: the vertical spacing between contour lines, in meters.
Peak line width: the width on the ground of the boldest ring on the map.
Progression strength: how strongly thin, faint rings stand out against bold ones.
Layer opacity: the overall transparency of the contour overlay. Set it to 0 to hide elevation without removing it.

Pro terrain and manual points also render in public share URLs and caddie books. Anyone who views your course sees the same terrain you do. A one-time preview is the exception. It stays in the editor.

What is still open

This feature is new and intentionally lean. We are still working out:

How elevation data should flow into distance markers, stairs and other height-aware objects.
Whether contours belong on more signage types or stay opt-in.
Whether local recalibration of the contour gradient per sign helps or hurts readability.

If you have a course where this works well, or does not, let us know. We tune against those examples.