Preparing input data for Fiber Design

A high-fidelity design needs high-fidelity input data. In Fiber Design, this is where most of your work happens. This article walks through the Input data step and links to the detailed article for each part.

What your project needs

Before you can design, the Input data step needs all of these:

Layer	How you usually get it	More information
Addresses	Area Select	Addresses
Parcels	Area Select	Parcels
Streets	Area Select	Streets
Underground path and points, or aerial spans and poles, or both	Data preparation (underground). Upload or draw (aerial).	Underground path and points · Aerial spans and poles
Leadins	Data preparation	Leadins
Sources (optional)	Upload or draw	Sources (central offices)

Each layer in the Input data step shows its status: a green tick when it’s complete, a warning when something’s missing, and grey when it’s empty.

Step 1: Import addresses, parcels and streets

Use Area Select to import all three for your area at once. See Import data with Area Select.

Step 2: Clean up your base data

Generated layers are only as good as the data they’re built from, so fix these first:

Parcels: run Review problematic parcels to remove street parcels, then fix lot lines where needed.
Streets: add any missing roads. FOND only generates path along roads that have a centerline.
Addresses: add missing addresses, move any that aren’t on their building, and check each AddressType.

Step 3: Add reference data (optional)

Under Reference data, add overlays such as existing utilities or no-build zones, to guide your decisions in the next steps. See Overlays.

Step 4: Run data preparation

Check your Design preferences (a shortcut to the architecture tab).
Under Choose what to generate, select Underground path and points, Leadins, or both.
Click Run data preparation.

FOND cleans your data, generates the underground network and leadins, then prepares the outputs. If the layers you’re generating already have data in them, FOND asks before replacing it.

Step 5: Review and refine the candidate network

Refine › Modify data opens the drawing tools for underground path and points, aerial spans and poles, leadins and addresses together. See Drawing tools.
Refine › Modify data › Path preferences steers cables onto the side of the road you want. See Path preferencing.

Check that:

Path follows the right of way
There are enough crossings in constructible places
Every address has a sensible leadin
Nothing is shown in red

Step 6: Continue to Design

When every required layer is complete, you’ll see Your design is ready to be generated. Click Continue.

You can’t edit input data while a design is generating.