Using the Help Center

How to find answers here: browse the sections, search, chat with AO Support, open the Help Center from AO, keep up with changes, and contact support.

Browse the sections

Section	What's in it
Getting started	Common questions, keyboard shortcuts, videos, and this article
What's new	What's coming next, what's in each AO release, and what's changed in this Help Center
Projects and data	Creating projects, loading data and moving files
Visualization	Supported file types, visualization options, datums, grids and export guides for survey software
Map and layers	The Layers window, objects, map tools and mission planning
Administration	Users, roles, groups and organizations
Security and Networking	Firewall rules, network requirements, security and working offline, for IT and security teams
AO OnBoard	Setting up, powering, signing in to and upgrading AO aboard vessels and at sites
Developers and API	AO's REST API: its reference, ways to sign in, monitoring, a script for moving files, and connecting AI assistants (MCP)

On the home page, choose See more under a section to see all its articles. On an article page, the list on the left shows the other articles in each section.

Start here for your kind of AO

Most articles apply to every kind of AO. Articles about only some kinds say so at the top, in an Applies to line, and sections that differ are headed by the kind of AO. MCP-enabled AO (preview) marks what needs AO's AI service, which is in preview and not yet on most AO systems: an MCP-enabled AO has an API tokens tab in My Account. Articles about a feature that's off until Terradepth turns it on for your organization say so the same way, such as Organizations with Remote Sync turned on: see Features turned on per organization.

You use	Start with
AO in the cloud (`ao.terradepth.com`)	Quick start: your first project
AO for government (`gov.terradepth.com`)	Quick start: your first project. For your network team: Firewall and allowlist quick reference
Self-hosted AO, on your own server or private cloud	Set up your AO server: checklist
AO OnBoard, aboard a vessel or at a site	AO OnBoard quick start

Not sure which you use? Look at the address you open AO at: ao.terradepth.com or gov.terradepth.com is run by Terradepth; any other address is your own AO system.

Search

Type a few words in Search for answers at the top of any page. Search looks at article titles and text.

Use the words you see in AO, such as "Layers window", "cloud mount" or "Visualize".
Try a file type or format, such as "GeoTIFF", "BAG", "XYZ" or "LAS".
Nothing found? Try a shorter or different word, or browse the sections above.

Chat with AO Support

Choose the chat button in the bottom right corner of any Help Center page and type your question. AO Support, Terradepth's AI support assistant, answers from the articles in this Help Center and shows the articles it used. If it can't answer, or you ask for a person, it passes your question to Terradepth support, who reply by email.

Open the Help Center from AO

Click your initial in the top right corner of AO and choose Help Center. It opens in a new tab. AO shows this link when it has internet access. Some AO windows also link straight to the article that explains them, such as the datum help when you visualize a file.

Keep up with changes

The What's new section has all of these:

AO Release Notes 2026 lists every release, newest first, with earlier years linked at the end.
Coming soon in AO shows what we're building next.
Help Center updates lists what's new in this Help Center.

Contact support

If you can't find an answer, choose Open a Support Request at the top of any page, or email support@terradepth.com. To help us answer quickly, include:

What you were doing, and what you expected to happen.
The project and file names, if a file or visualization is involved.
Any error message, and a screenshot if you can.
Whether you use AO in the cloud, AO for government or your own AO system.

At the end of each article, Was this article helpful? tells us which articles need work.