The Giraffe Engine turns the shapes you draw into buildings, levels, and numbers. Every time you sketch a footprint, set a usage, or run a flow, the engine works out the 3D form and the results your feasibility study depends on, like floor area and unit counts. Knowing how it works helps you keep large projects fast and spot problems early.

What the engine does

The engine reads what you draw and calculates what Giraffe shows on the map. A shape you draw is a raw geometry. The engine turns each raw geometry into an evaluated geometry, ready to render and measure.

For each geometry, the engine works through these steps in order:

Runs any flows attached to the geometry.
Builds any geometries that blocks or flows place for it.
Stacks levels on top of each other to make the 3D form.
Builds the display shapes, like labels and outlines.
Drapes the result over terrain, when terrain is on.

Learn more about raw and evaluated geometries.

Where the engine runs

The engine runs in your browser, in the background, separate from the rest of the page. That keeps the map and panels responsive while the engine calculates. A large project with many flows needs more memory and processing power from your computer. Each evaluated geometry renders on the map in 2D and 3D. When terrain is on, the engine drapes geometries over the ground so they sit at the right elevation.

When the engine recalculates

The engine recalculates every time you change a geometry, including while you drag it. It only recalculates the geometries that changed, plus any geometries that depend on them, such as neighbors stacked against them.

The map updates as soon as the engine finishes a geometry.
Metrics in apps like Analytics update a fraction of a second later. They run in their own calculation after the engine finishes.
Some changes make the engine recalculate the whole project. That happens when you change engine settings, or pause or start the engine.

Pause the engine

Pause the engine to stop Giraffe from building geometries while you make a lot of edits, or while you track down a slow flow. Click Pause Engine at the bottom left of the map.

While the engine is paused, the map gets a colored border and a Resume Engine button appears at the top right of the map.

While the engine is paused:

You can still draw and edit geometries.
Metrics and flow results stop updating.
A colored border appears around the map, and a Resume Engine button appears in the top-right corner of the map.
Engine error messages are hidden from the bottom bar.

To start the engine again, click Resume Engine on the map.

Click the play icon, Start Engine, in the bottom bar.

Engine settings

Click the Engine Settings gear at the bottom left of the map to change how the engine builds your project.

Empty Return Visualization: how to show a geometry that has no results. Choose nothing to show nothing, outline to show the input as an outline, or magenta to fill the input in magenta.
Calculate facade area: turn on to calculate facade area, leaving out walls shared with neighboring geometries. Learn more in managing facade computation.
Interior wall tolerance: how close two points must be to count as the same point when finding shared walls. The default is 0.1 m. This setting is only available when Calculate facade area is on.

Learn more about the bottom bar and ways to improve project performance.

Engine errors

When the engine can't build a geometry, an error appears next to the engine buttons at the bottom left of the map. Hover over the error to highlight the geometries, and click it to select them.

Message	What triggers it	What to do
"Something went wrong with the Giraffe Engine. Contact support if refreshing the page does not fix the issue." (toast)	The engine hit an error it could not finish.	Refresh the page. Contact support if the message comes back.
"Geometry calculation has crashed. The engine recovered but the bad input keeps coming back. Pause the engine to investigate, then re-enable when ready." (toast)	A geometry keeps crashing the calculation each time the engine tries it. The toast stays until you close it.	Click Pause Engine in the toast. Find and fix or delete the geometry you just drew or edited, then click Resume Engine.
"Cut and fill error" (toast)	Giraffe could not work out the best ground levels when you ran cut and fill.	Try again. If it fails again, check the geometries you selected for cut and fill.
Engine Status (bottom bar, yellow)	The engine is still working on your last change.	Wait a moment. Refresh the page only if it never clears.
Engine Error (bottom bar, red)	The engine itself returned an error.	Pause and start the engine. Refresh the page if that does not clear it.
Section Error (bottom bar, yellow)	One or more geometries failed to calculate. The message shows the first error and how many others have errors.	Click the message to select those geometries. If one has a flow, troubleshoot the flow. The message clears when the geometry calculates without errors or you delete it.

If a geometry with a flow keeps failing, learn how to troubleshoot a flow.