PLOT is the work of Emma Coochin and Steve Coochin, who own acreage in Clermont, in Central Queensland. The first version was a paper sketchbook with an aerial print-out glued to one page, because the question was simple: where does the next shed go? It turned out the question was not simple at all.
On rural property, where you put a permanent structure today quietly commits you to a chain of decisions years out. The shed site dictates where the water line wants to run. The water line shapes where the drainage has to go after the next big wet. The drainage decides which paddocks stay usable in February. Pick the spot wrong and you spend the rest of the property's life walking around your own bad call.
A sketchbook works for one decision. It does not scale to "what if the orchard ran the other way?", and it does not compose with the things you already plotted last year. We tried the obvious tools. CAD packages with weeks of learning curve and a subscription you keep paying long after the one job is done. GIS tools engineered for surveyors that never make "drop a shed here" obvious. Map-app screenshots and a pencil that land you back at the sketchbook. The market had a hole the size of a normal person's Saturday morning.
So we built one. PLOT started as a tool for our property; once it worked, friends with their own acreage started asking if they could use it too, then their neighbours did. The problem turns out not to be unique to us. Anyone planning a paddock layout, a fence run, a dam site, a septic placement, or just where the kids' trampoline should go is solving the same puzzle. We were tired of solving it on paper. Now nobody has to.
A short list of things you will not find PLOT doing:
For product feedback, bug reports, partnerships, press, or the inevitable "hey can you build me a custom version of this" request, head to the contact form on the homepage.