Cam IncollFieldwalker is a permaculture design tool that lets you create a base map of any property in the world from just an address — retrieving aerial imagery automatically so you can start designing immediately, instead of spending hours on preparation.
The base map is where every permaculture design begins. Before you think about zones, before you sketch a swale, before you place a single tree — you need to see the site. You need an aerial view of the property with enough detail to identify what's already there and enough accuracy to design with confidence.
And yet, for most people, creating a base map is where the process stalls.
The way it usually goes
You open Google Maps. You zoom in on the property. You take a screenshot, maybe a few screenshots if the site is larger than one screen. You paste them into a document or a drawing app. You try to line them up. The scale is wrong. The resolution is fuzzy at the edges. There are UI elements baked into the screenshot that you can't remove.
Or maybe you go further. You find a satellite imagery provider and try to download a proper tile. Now you're dealing with coordinate systems, tile zoom levels, image formats. You spend an afternoon on something that has nothing to do with permaculture design.
I've been through this. When we bought our farm, the first thing I wanted was a clear aerial view of the property overlaid with contour lines so I could understand the shape of the land. What I got instead was weeks of mucking around — sourcing imagery, trying to figure out the right resolution, stitching things together in software that wasn't designed for what I was trying to do.
None of that was design. None of it was observation. It was just overhead.
What if the base map just appeared?
That's the question that started Fieldwalker. What if you could type an address — any address, anywhere in the world — and have a high-resolution aerial image of the site ready to work with in seconds?
That's what the tool does. You enter a location. Fieldwalker retrieves the satellite imagery for that area automatically. Within moments, you're looking at your property — trees, buildings, fence lines, dams, all visible in the aerial view. No screenshots, no stitching, no coordinate systems.
The image is properly scaled to real-world dimensions, which means when you start designing on top of it, your measurements mean something. A garden bed is the right size relative to the house. A fence line covers the right distance. You're working with the actual site, not an approximation.
Why this matters for permaculture
In permaculture design, everything starts with observation. You observe the land before you design it. You look at where the water flows, where the sun falls, what's already growing, what structures exist. The base map is the foundation for all of that observation work.
But if creating the base map takes a full day, you've used up your energy before the real work begins. If the map is inaccurate or poorly scaled, every design decision you make on top of it is compromised.
A fast, accurate base map means you spend your time on what actually matters — reading the landscape, understanding the site, thinking about how the design should respond to what's there. The mechanical step of getting the aerial image shouldn't be a project in itself.
From base map to design
Once you have the aerial image, the rest of the workflow opens up. Fieldwalker can generate contour lines from elevation data, so you can see the topography of the site without surveying or processing GIS data. AI detection can identify existing trees, buildings, and vegetation patterns, giving you a head start on mapping what's already there.
And then you design. You place permaculture symbols — swales, zones, garden beds, fences, water features — directly on top of the aerial image, using a design language that will feel familiar if you've studied permaculture design manuals. When you're done, you export a professional design document.
But it all starts with the base map. Get that right, get it fast, and the design process flows from there.
Every permaculture design starts with seeing the site clearly. Fieldwalker makes that the easiest step, not the hardest.