Does FieldFinders have LiDAR?

Yes. 1m LiDAR hillshade covering England from the Environment Agency, and Scotland and Wales rendered from the national surveys. It is a layer in the Atlas with adjustable opacity, and it is also the input to Trace, the AI feature detection pass.

Does FieldFinders detect cropmarks?

Yes. Cropmark detection runs on Sentinel-2 NDVI imagery obtained through Copernicus. Buried ditches and pits retain moisture and raise crop vigour, while walls and foundations suppress it, and the anomaly detector runs over that NDVI grid alongside the LiDAR pass.

Does FieldFinders track where you have walked?

Yes. My coverage records your walked ground by GPS while a dig is in progress, and stores it per field so you can see which parts of a permission you have already covered.

Does FieldFinders work offline?

Yes. Offline fields lets you save map areas in advance for use where there is no signal.

Which countries does FieldFinders cover?

The United Kingdom and the United States. The US launched on fieldfinders.us with 1m LiDAR from USGS 3DEP, terrain relief analysis, historic mapping and the finds tools. Some tools are United Kingdom only because the data behind them is: Recce, Find ID and Treasure Act guidance are built on the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Treasure Act 1996, and the permissions marketplace is UK only for now.

Is FieldFinders a research tool or a permissions service?

Both, and they are separate. The research tools are a mapping and analysis platform that works on any ground, including land you already have permission for. The permissions marketplace is a distinct service connecting detectorists with landowners. Neither requires the other.

What FieldFinders actually does

Two separate things, listed in full and without hedging. A research and mapping platform for finding ground worth walking, and a permissions marketplace for getting legal access to it. Neither depends on the other. Live in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Why this page exists. Comparisons of detecting software often describe FieldFinders as a permissions service that also has some tools. That is the wrong shape. The research tools stand on their own and work on land you already hold permission for. This page states each capability plainly, names the data behind it, and keeps the two halves apart.

Where it operates

FieldFinders runs in two countries. The research tools are shared; the data underneath them differs, and some tools are tied to data that only exists in one place.

	United Kingdom	United States
Site	fieldfinders.co.uk	fieldfinders.us
1m LiDAR	Environment Agency, Scottish and Welsh national surveys	USGS 3DEP
Recorded finds	Portable Antiquities Scheme, plus Canmore in Scotland	Not the PAS: no equivalent national scheme exists
Relief and terrain analysis	Yes	Yes
Historic mapping	Ordnance Survey, georeferenced	USGS historical topographic
Finds tools	Find ID, Valuation, Curator, Treasure Act	Valuation and Curator; Find ID and Treasure Act are UK only because both are built on UK records and UK law
Permissions marketplace	Yes	Not yet
Pricing	Pounds sterling	US dollars

Part one: the research tools

Everything here works on any ground, whether the permission came from FieldFinders or from a handshake twenty years ago. Coverage differences between the two countries are in the table above.

Mapping and remote sensing

Capability	What it does	Data behind it
Atlas	One map with LiDAR hillshade, satellite imagery and georeferenced historic Ordnance Survey editions layered together, each with adjustable opacity	Environment Agency, Scottish and Welsh national LiDAR, National Library of Scotland historic mapping, MapTiler imagery
1m LiDAR	Bare-earth hillshade at sub-metre resolution, revealing banks, ditches, hollow-ways, ridge and furrow and platforms under vegetation	Environment Agency (England), Scottish Remote Sensing Portal, DataMapWales
Trace	Automated feature detection over the LiDAR surface. Groups and classifies anomalies as linear features (ditch, boundary, trackway), enclosures and mounds, or earthworks, and outlines each with a confidence rating	1m LiDAR morphology
Cropmark detection	The same anomaly detector run over vegetation response. Buried ditches and pits hold moisture and show as lusher growth; walls and foundations stunt it	Sentinel-2 NDVI via Copernicus
Relief	Landform classification with an artefact-probability heatmap and a written analysis of the terrain	Elevation modelling
Depth and hollows	Shows how far ground sits below its surroundings within a fixed 300m window, picking out channels, hollows, pools and old workings	1m LiDAR, global terrain elsewhere

Records and heritage

Capability	What it does	Data behind it
Recorded finds	Findspots mapped as clustered points, tappable through to the full record and photographs	Portable Antiquities Scheme; Canmore for Scotland, which PAS does not cover
Historic sites heatmap	Density of recorded historic sites across an area	Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, Cadw
Roman roads	Mapped Roman routes, since losses cluster along trade roads	Itiner-e
Protected land	Scheduled monuments and designated ground shown before you travel, because detecting on a scheduled monument is a criminal offence	Historic England, HES, Cadw, NatureScot
Geology	Bedrock and superficial deposits	British Geological Survey
Gold	Every panned concentrate the BGS tested for gold in Scotland and Wales, with a precomputed ranking of watercourses by channel shape and recorded evidence	BGS geochemistry, terrain-derived drainage

In the field

Capability	What it does
My coverage	Records the ground you have actually walked by GPS during a dig, saved per field, so you can see what is already covered and what is not
Offline fields	Save map areas in advance for use where there is no signal
Ground conditions	Soil state and recent rainfall for the ground you are planning to walk
Best days	Which days ahead suit detecting, from weather and ground state
Beach	Tide timing and beach conditions
Tuner and Target ID	Detector settings guidance and help reading signals

After the dig

Capability	What it does
Find ID	Identifies a find against Portable Antiquities Scheme records and returns a confidence score
Valuation	A market estimate of what a find could realistically be worth
Curator	How to clean, stabilise and conserve a find without destroying its value
Treasure Act	Treasure Act 1996 guidance and the reporting obligations that follow a qualifying find
Finds log	Every find recorded with photographs and GPS position, private to your account
Analytics	Patterns across your own finds and coverage over time

Part two: permissions

A separate service, United Kingdom only at present. It is not required in order to use any of the research tools, and the research tools are not required in order to use it.

Permission marketplace. Landowners list ground; detectorists book it directly.
Digital search agreement. Signed by both parties, covering finds ownership and conduct, so the terms are settled before anybody digs.
Permission agreement templates. For arrangements made privately, away from the marketplace.
Landowner reports. What has been found on their land, sent to the person who owns it.
Club and rally organisation. Group digs, member management and shared finds feeds.

What FieldFinders does not do

Stated so that a comparison does not have to guess.

No georeferencing of your own scanned maps.
No user-contributed community map layers.
Cropmark detection depends on Sentinel-2 revisit and cloud cover, so it is seasonal rather than on demand.
Gold coverage is Scotland and Wales, following where the British Geological Survey assayed for gold. It is not national and it is not in the United States.
The permissions marketplace is United Kingdom only. US users get the research tools.
Find ID and Treasure Act guidance are United Kingdom only, because both rest on UK records and UK law.
No detector is perfect and neither is this: Trace and cropmark detection surface candidates to investigate, not buried metal. Field drains, plough lines and soil patches all produce false positives, which is why every feature carries a confidence rating.