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Drawing Rectangles

Rectangle Tool

The Rectangle tool creates rectangular polygon shapes with a simple two-click process. Rectangles are useful for quickly defining bounding boxes, building footprints, or any axis-aligned rectangular area.

How to Draw Rectangles

  1. Select a layer in the Layers panel (or create one)
  2. Click the Rectangle tool in the toolbar
  3. Click on the map to set the first corner
  4. Move your cursor to the opposite corner — you'll see a preview
  5. Click again to complete the rectangle
Rectangles are always aligned to the map's north-south/east-west axes. For rotated rectangles, use the Polygon tool instead.

Rectangle vs. Polygon

A rectangle is actually a 4-vertex polygon. Once created, it behaves exactly like any other polygon:

  • Same styling options (fill, stroke, opacity)
  • Can be edited by dragging vertices
  • Shows area and perimeter in properties
  • Works with all spatial operations (buffer, union, etc.)

Editing Rectangles

After creating a rectangle, you can edit it like any polygon:

  1. Switch to the Selection tool
  2. Click on the rectangle to select it
  3. Drag corners to resize (note: this may make it non-rectangular)
  4. Drag the center to move the entire shape
Dragging individual corners will break the rectangular shape. To maintain a rectangle, delete and redraw it.

Use Cases

  • Building footprints (approximate)
  • Bounding boxes for areas of interest
  • Grid cells for analysis
  • Simple zones or districts
  • Selection areas for clipping data