```{eval-rst}
.. meta::
:description: Describes what CloudRF is, who it is for, and the accuracy, scalability and speed of its radio propagation modelling service.
```
# About CloudRF
**CloudRF** is an accessible service for modelling radio propagation.
CloudRF was built as a cost-effective solution for busy radio operators and engineers who do not have the time required to use complex engineering tools.
At CloudRF, we pride ourselves on **innovation** and have transformed the way people conduct radio coverage modelling, disrupting what was a very expensive and time consuming desktop market.
Our API first design means the service can be integrated directly into different solutions across industries. We're used for planning in dynamic markets including Search and Rescue, Mining, Transportation and Air surveillance.
## Benefits
### Accuracy
Our API supports precision DTM and LiDAR at 1m resolution, soft clutter / land cover and custom obstacles. You can define regional clutter profiles for different trees, seasons and even building architectures.
We field test our software regularly to calibrate models and clutter for representative environments and have drive-survey tools for tuning.
### Speed
Our CPU and GPU engines are the fastest, and most economical, on the web and support large full-network simulation with diffraction and attenuation.
We have APIs capable of rapid Monte Carlo simulation to find the best site(s) as well as satellite spotbeam coverage accurate to street level accuracy.
### Availability
Our global high resolution data and antenna patterns are ready to go now. Save yourself hours of mission preparation.
We include global data in all our plans, with a clear price which we are proud to publish.
### Economy
We have simple interfaces designed for busy humans with options to support radio technologies from HF Skywave to Satellite spotbeams.
We believe a tool should be quick to pickup and use.
## Our Mission
Our mission is to make radio planning **simple** and **accessible**.
**Radio modelling** is complicated that usually needs an enormous number of resources and preparation to do it accurately and efficiently. We want it to be accessible, accurate, and user-friendly.
## Innovation Roadmap
| Year | Milestones |
| ---- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| 2011 | RFSignal for Android launched.
Top 50 in communications category on Play Store. |
| 2012 | CloudRF.com website launched with web interface |
| 2013 | Keyhole Radio™ interactive layer for Google Earth. |
| 2014 | Virtual machines offered. |
| 2015 | ITU propagation models added to engine.
Channel intersection.
Mesh functionality. |
| 2016 | LiDAR high resolution data in engine and interfaces.
UK 2 meter and US city DSM uploaded. |
| 2017 | Drone photogrammetry support via Pix4D.
Global 30m DSM |
| 2018 | New LiDAR propagation engine SLEIPNIR developed.
LiDAR uploaded for New Zealand, Estonia, Sweden, DC and Baltimore
GPU prototype engine |
| 2019 | 30 meter landcover with 584 types for CONUS and EU.
KML "do-it-yourself" clutter upload utilty.
3D clutter with material densities. |
| 2020 | 3D building support with configurable attenuation.
3D cross-platform interface.
26k antenna patterns added
ATAK integration |
| 2021 | ATAK chatbot
SOOTHSAYER™ virtual machine with BYO LiDAR
10 meter global clutter
More API client examples inc Windows
Points API for many-many analysis
CSV coverage metrics |
| 2022 | GPU area API
Satellite planning tool
MANET planning tool
Hardware API integration
GPU Best site analysis API |
| 2023 | GPU Multisite / MANET
GPU clutter attenuation
ATAK plugin |
| 2024 | 3D API with multipath and phase effects.
General purpose model and multi-obstacle diffraction models
Output bounded GPU calculations for SATCOM viewsheds |
| 2025 | Phase Tracing interface for BYO glTF based simulations.
ATAK plugin with output bounds polygon tool
HF Skywave with frequency prediction |
| 2026 | High resolution tree canopy data
Multilink API for many-to-many Tx/Rx
ITU-R P.1812 model
Throughput units
PNUT project interface with 3D Tiles |
## Supported Technologies
- Anything that uses radio from **2-100,000 MHz**.
- The protocol agnostic API can be used to model diverse analogue and digital communications with support for anything from simplex voice channels to wideband trunked data bearers.
- CloudRF has been used to plan private 5G networks, Search and Rescue operations, Counter Drone systems and Rail safety networks.
## Platforms
The following platforms are supported:
- **Android**, **Linux**, **Mac/OSX** and **Windows** are supported.
- Our **ATAK** plugin lets you model the coverage of live map data
- Our **Web interfaces** work across different browsers
**Google Chrome** is recommended for best performance.
## CloudRF.com (public service)
### Account registration
To **Register your account** on CloudRF:
- On the **CloudRF website** ([https://cloudrf.com/](https://cloudrf.com/)):
- Click on **My Account** tab.
- The **My Accounts** screen will appear.
- Under the **Register** section,
- In the **Username** field, enter the username as desired.
- In the **Email Address** field, enter your email address.
- In the **Quiz** field, enter your answer to the respective question.
- _This is to make sure that the user is a **human**. If you do not know the answer, you can always **Google** it!_
- Click on **Register** button.
- A **Verification link** will be sent to your registered email id.
- Open your registered **email id**.
_If you have not received the email, please check you registered email **SPAM** folder. You may set CloudRF email as **Not Spam** in your email to receive the emails directly in your inbox._
- Click on the **Verification link**.
- The **Success Message** pop-up will appear, and you will be **logged in** into your account.
- The **CloudRF Tool Home Page** will be displayed.
### Login
To **Log in into your Account** on the CloudRF:
- On the **CloudRF website** ([https://cloudrf.com/](https://cloudrf.com/)):
- Click on **My Account** tab.
- The **My Accounts** screen will appear.
- Under the **Login** section:
- In the **Username or email address** field, enter your username or email address.
- In the **Password** field, enter your password.
- You may select the **Remember me** checkbox to save the credentials on your device.
- Click on **Log in** button.
### Lost Your Password?
If you have lost your password, you can reset it through your **registered email address**.
To do so:
- Click on **Lost your Password?** link.
- The **Lost Password** screen will appear.
- Enter the **New Password** as desired.
- **Re-enter new password** to confirm.
- Click on **Save** button.
- The **Success message** pop-up will appear.
### The Home Page
After you login into your CloudRF account, the **Home Page** will be displayed.
- You can access the **Web Interface**, **API**, **My archive**, **My antennas** and **My clutter** by clicking on the respective button on the Home Page.
- Click on **Web Interface** button to know how you will access the CloudRF Modeling tool itself right in your web browser.
- Click on **API** button to access the API.
- You can see your API key and your current subscription plan as well.
- The **CloudRF API** for radio planning lets you model radio coverage for any RF system between *20 and 100,000MHz*.
- A **CloudRF account** and **active plan** are required to use the API.
- Click on **Buy a Plan** button to purchase a plan.
- Moreover, it lets you upgrade your account as well to access all the available features.
- You can add the desired plan(s)/subscription(s) to your cart by clicking on the **Add to Cart** / **Sign up now** button.
- You may also scroll down to view the **FAQs** section.
- The **Right Navigation Menu** with the following menu options will be displayed. You can click on the:
-  **Dashboard** - for accessing the Home Page.
-  **Orders** - to view all your orders.
- If no orders have been made, you may click on *Browse products* button to browse the available products.
-  **Subscriptions** - to view all your subscriptions.
- If you have no active subscriptions , you may click on *Browse products* button to browse the available subscriptions.
-  **Downloads** - to view all the downloaded files.
- You may click on *Browse products* button to browse the available products.
-  **Addresses** - to view the shipping and billing addresses added to your account.
-  **Payment methods** - to view the payment methods added to buy your orders or subscriptions.
- You may also add a payment method by clicking on the *Add Payment Method* button.
Note: Credit card details are not saved on CloudRF. They are stored with our payment gateway and we hold a temporary token.
-  **Account details** - for accessing your account details and edit them if required.
- You can change your **password**, **contact preference**, and **time zone settings** from here.
- Click on **Save Changes** button after making the required changes.
-  **Logout** - if you wish to logout from your account.
- The *Login/Register* screen will be displayed.
### Dashboard
- The **API credentials** of your account - *UID* and *KEY* will be displayed.
- To copy the **API Key**, you can click on the *copy*  icon.
- Under **My usage** section:
- The **API Calls details** and the **Storage used** will be displayed.
- You may click on the **Delete My Data** button to delete the data of your usage.
- Under **My Plans** section:
- Your **Plan details** (*Time, Product and Expiry*) will be displayed.
- You can click on **Missing your orders** link as per your requirement.
- Under **My Networks** section:
- Your **Network details** (*Network and Calculations*) will be displayed.
### Ordering a Plan
You can order a plan or a subscription by adding the desired product in your cart and then paying for the same.
To order a plan or a subscription:
- Under **My Accounts** tab, you can click on the **Buy a plan** button.
*OR*
- Click on **Plans** tab.
*OR*
- Under **My Accounts** tab:
- Click on **Orders**, **Subscriptions** or **Downloads**.
- Click on **Browse Products** button.
- The **Plans** screen will be displayed.
- You can add the desired plans or subscriptions by clicking on the **Add to cart** or **Sign up now** button respectively.
- You can also upgrade your account from here to access all the available features.
## Choosing an Interface
On CloudRF, there are **four major Interfaces** available:
- **CloudRF API**
- **Web Interface**
- **3D Phase Tracing**
- **PNUT Project Interface**
The following is the description and the steps of loading of each interface:
1. **Web Interface**
- The **Web interface** is the primary user interface for CloudRF that works on desktops, tablets and mobiles.
- To load the **Web Interface**:
- Under *My Accounts* tab, click on **Web Interface** button.
- The Web Interface will be displayed.
2. **CloudRF API**
- The **CloudRF API** is a *public programming interface* which allows developers to pull upon the power and data of CloudRF with just a few lines of code (in a language of your choice).
- Integrate radio planning into your application or website without the heavy CPU, memory or disk resources required
- To load the **CloudRF API**:
- Under *My Accounts* tab, click on **API** button.
- You can access your API and view your API key & your current subscription plan.
- The **CloudRF API** for radio planning lets you model radio coverage for any RF system with global data and high performance compute ready to go.
- A **CloudRF account** and **active plan** are required to use the API.
3. **3D Phase Tracing**
- The **Phase Tracing** interface is a web based interface to our 3D engine which supports reflections, material characteristics, multipath, scattering and phase tracking.
It is designed for small dense problems such as a factory, subway station or a small campus. It does not scale to city wide or large scale problems due to memory limits.
To use it:
- Upload a 3D model as a glTF / glB file
- Add transmitters within the model
- Click a transmitter to change its settings
- Set the required number of reflections and material defaults
- Run the simulation
- Model gallery: https://cloud-rf.github.io/CloudRF-API-clients/model-gallery/index.html
4. **PNUT Project Interface**
- This premium interface is designed for organisations requiring collaboration across technologies
- It supports PACE plans with different technologies eg. Cellular, VHF, SATCOM.
- A key aspect of this interface is the ability to scale knowledge through organisation templates so a senior planner can create templates a team can use.
### Performance Tips
Following are the tips and tricks that can help you maximise Web interface performance.
- Ensure you have a GPU video card and a web browser that supports WebGL.
- Reduce your screen resolution to no more than 1920 x 1080px.
- Switch off 3D terrain in the interface as this layer uses more memory.
- Close other 3D applications like Google Earth.
- Close unused browser tabs for other websites to save memory.