Privacy Policy
This policy covers the VDC Custom CAD Tools plug-in for Autodesk Civil 3D and AutoCAD (the "Software") and the newrootsdevelopment.co website. It is written to say exactly what the Software does with data, feature by feature. If a feature is not listed here, it does not send data anywhere.
The short version
- The Software has no analytics, no telemetry, no advertising, and no third-party tracking SDKs. It does not report how you use it.
- It does not require an account or a sign-in.
- It never sends your drawings, drawing contents, or project files to New Roots unless you deliberately use the Plan Email upload feature to do so.
- A few features contact the internet for a specific job. Each one is listed below with what is sent, to whom, and why.
- Everything the Software remembers about you lives in a folder on your own computer, and you can delete it at any time.
1. Who Is Responsible
New Roots Development, LLC, a South Carolina limited liability company, is the controller of any personal data described in this policy. Contact us at the address above with any question or request.
2. What The Software Stores On Your Computer
The Software keeps its settings under %APPDATA%\VDC on the workstation where it runs. Nothing in that folder is transmitted to New Roots. It can contain:
- Tool settings and presets you have saved (layer names, thresholds, jurisdiction rule sets, dialog sizes and positions).
- The Plan Email address book: names and email addresses you entered.
- The record that you accepted the End User License Agreement (the EULA version, the date, and the Windows user name that accepted it).
- Your license key, if you have one. A key contains the licensee name or company, the number of seats, the issue and expiry dates, and a cryptographic signature. It contains no payment information.
- The start date of the built-in 14-day trial (a small file in the same folder, mirrored under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NewRootsDevelopment\VDC in your Windows registry so the trial is counted once per user).
To remove all of it, uninstall the Software and delete the %APPDATA%\VDC folder.
Reports and CSV files the tools generate are written to a "VDC Reports" folder next to the drawing you ran them on. They stay on your computer or your own network.
3. Features That Contact The Internet
3.1 Update check
What: At start-up, and when you run Check for Updates (VDCUPDATE), the Software downloads the public release-notes file https://www.newrootsdevelopment.co/whats-new.json.
Sent: An ordinary web request. No account, license, user, machine, or drawing information is included. Like every web request, it carries your IP address and browser-style headers to the web host.
Why: To tell you whether a newer version exists and what changed.
Retained by New Roots: nothing. The website host (Wix) keeps standard access logs under its own policy.
Off switch: it is a six-second, best-effort request; blocking newrootsdevelopment.co at your firewall disables it without affecting any tool.
3.2 Help pages and F1
What: The Help buttons, dialog Help links, and F1 open pages under https://www.newrootsdevelopment.co/vdc/help/ in your default browser.
Sent: A normal website visit. See section 6 for the website.
Why: Documentation.
3.3 Plan Email - large-file upload (VDCPLANEMAIL, "Upload" mode)
What: When an attachment you chose is too large to email, and only if you choose Upload, the Software uploads that file to a storage bucket New Roots operates on Cloudflare R2, then places a download link in the email you are composing.
Sent: The file(s) you selected (PDF, ZIP, DWG, DWF, DWFX, up to 5 GB each) and the file name. No other data.
Who can access it: anyone who has the link, and New Roots administrators of the bucket. Links are not published or indexed.
Retained: files are deleted automatically 90 days after upload. Email Support@newrootsdevelopment.co with the link to have a file deleted sooner.
Processor: Cloudflare, Inc. (R2 object storage and Workers), under Cloudflare's own privacy policy.
3.4 Email features (Plan Email, Error Report Email)
The Software never sends email itself. It composes a draft in your own mail client (Microsoft Outlook, or your default mail app through a mailto: link). You see the draft, its recipients, and its attachments before anything is sent, and your mail provider's policy governs the message from there.
Error Report Email (VDCERROREMAIL) gathers Autodesk crash-report files already on your computer into such a draft, addressed to whoever you choose (your CAD manager, or New Roots support), so a crash can be diagnosed. Those files can include memory dumps (a snapshot of what the program had open, which may contain parts of your project data), crash logs, drawing names, file paths, Windows usernames, and the last commands run. Nothing is collected until you choose to send the draft.
Crash report data handling. Crash reports sent to New Roots Development are used only to find and fix the cause of the crash. We delete the raw crash files when the issue is resolved or 30 days after we receive them, whichever comes first (copies in email and backups included), and ask before keeping them longer. We keep only a short written summary of each crash, with no memory dumps or project content, in your service record so we can spot repeat problems. The full notice is at newrootsdevelopment.co/crash-reports.html. We do not share crash files with anyone, including Autodesk, unless you ask us to or agree first, and we never sell them, use them for marketing, or use them to train any AI model. Ask us to delete yours at any time: Support@newrootsdevelopment.co.
3.5 Public GIS and geodata lookups
Site Data, Site Snapshot, Adjoiner Labels, Adjoiner Parcels, Buffer Yard, Wetlands, FIRM Note, Flood QC, Soils, Terrain, NGS Control, and related commands query public map services when you run them.
Sent: the geographic extent (coordinates) of the drawing area you asked about, sometimes a parcel number you typed, and the standard web request headers. No drawing content, no user identity.
To whom (public agencies and their hosting providers): county GIS servers (for example Horry County SC, Georgetown County SC, Brunswick County NC), NC OneMap and NCDOT, the US Geological Survey National Map and 3DEP, the US Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory, FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer, the USDA Soil Data Access service, the NOAA National Geodetic Survey, the US Census TIGERweb, and Esri ArcGIS Online services those agencies publish through. Your organization can add its own sources in the Site Data settings; requests to those go where you point them.
Why: To bring public geodata into your drawing.
Retained by New Roots: nothing. Those requests never pass through New Roots servers.
3.6 Autodesk App Store and updates from GitHub
If you obtained the Software from the Autodesk App Store, Autodesk and its payment processor handle your account and purchase under their own policies; we receive the licensee name and email needed to issue your license key and keep a record of the purchase for as long as the license and applicable tax law require. If your organization uses the automatic update scripts, they download release packages from GitHub Releases (github.com). GitHub sees the download request under its own policy.
4. Features That Write Data Inside Your Own Files Or Network
4.1 Edit Track (VDCWHO). Off by default. When your organization turns it on,
it records the Windows user name (or a name you type) and the date on the objects you edit, inside the drawing file, so the team can see who changed what. That information travels wherever the drawing travels. Turn it off with the Track toggle or the VDC_EDITTRACK=0 setting.
4.2 Deployment-share sync (Install.bat / Update.bat) and Suite Versions
(VDCVERSIONS). Organizations that deploy from a shared network folder get a small "beacon" file per workstation on that share containing the computer name, the Windows user name, and the installed version, so an administrator can see which seats are current. The share is yours; New Roots has no access to it.
4.3 Drawing locks (VDCLOCKS, VDCWHOSOPEN). Read AutoCAD's own lock files on
your network to show who has a drawing open. Nothing is written or sent.
5. What We Do Not Do
- We do not sell, rent, or share personal data for marketing.
- We do not use analytics, advertising networks, or tracking pixels in the Software.
- We do not collect drawing content, project data, or file lists.
- We do not read your Autodesk account. The Software works without one.
6. The Website
newrootsdevelopment.co is hosted on Wix. Wix sets the cookies needed to serve the site and keeps standard access logs (IP address, pages requested, browser type) under Wix's privacy policy. The site has no advertising and no third- party analytics beyond what the host provides. If you email or call us, we keep that correspondence to answer you and for our business records.
The download form. To download a trial of an installable product (StakeTally today) we ask for your name, your email address and, if you like, your firm. The form sends them to our own small web service (the one that runs NRD Site Snapshot), which keeps them in a list of who downloaded what and when, with the address the request came from, and emails us a note. We use them to send the release notes you asked for and to answer your questions. We do not sell or share them. Ask at Support@newrootsdevelopment.co and we remove you from the list.
The update check. StakeTally asks GitHub's public releases list once a day whether a newer version exists. Nothing about you or your estimate goes with the request; GitHub sees your address as any website does. Help > Check for updates at start-up turns it off.
7. NRD Site Snapshot, The Web App
Site Snapshot at snapshot.newrootsdevelopment.co (and nrd-site-snapshot.fly.dev) is a separate web app, not part of the Software. It runs on servers we rent from Fly.io in the United States.
7.1 Lookups and share links
A lookup sends the point, address or parcel number you enter to the same public map services listed in 3.5, and to a geocoder (the US Census geocoder, or Esri's World Geocoder once our key is in place) to turn an address into a point. We store the result behind its share link: the location, the parcel numbers found, the county and municipality, and every row with its source and pull date. We do not store who asked. Anyone with the link can open it. Owner names are not part of the free lookup.
7.2 Accounts
Signing in needs only an email address. We send a one-time link through Resend, an email delivery service, which sees your address and the message; nothing else goes to Resend. We keep your address, the time of each sign-in, the address the sign-in request came from, and a session cookie (ss_session) that keeps you signed in for 30 days. There are no passwords. An account owner can add colleagues by email; they see the same account.
7.3 The project record
Signed in, you can turn a snapshot into a project and keep a record around it: firms, contacts (name, title, email, phone, license number), who is involved in a project, phases and lot counts, permits, review cycles and the comment checklists you keep on them, hearing dates, opportunities with a fee, a probability and a go/no-go scorecard, links to documents that live elsewhere (we store the address and a title, never the file), notes and follow-ups, and which member of your account is named on each. This is your data. It is private to your account, we do not read it except to run the service or when you ask for help, we never sell it, use it for marketing, share it with other accounts or use it to train any AI model, and the people named in it can ask us what we hold. You can download all of it at any time from the Account page (JSON, or CSV per table), and you can delete any item there. Ask Support@newrootsdevelopment.co to delete the whole account; we remove it within 30 days, backups included. You are responsible for having a lawful basis to store the contact details you enter.
The Dictate button on a note uses your browser's own speech recognition: the browser (Chrome, Edge or Safari) turns your voice into text under its maker's policy, and only the text you choose to save reaches us. We never receive or store audio.
Your account has a record address (a code at record.newrootsdevelopment.co). Email you send, copy or forward to it is received by Resend on our behalf and stored in your account as a note: the sender and recipient addresses, the subject, the date and the message text. Attachments are not kept. Only mail you choose to send there is stored; we never read your mailbox. A spreadsheet of contacts you import is stored the same way as contacts you type.
7.4 The Outlook add-in
The optional Log to Site Snapshot button for Outlook is an Office add-in served from our app. It runs inside your Outlook and only acts when you click it on a message: it then sends that message's sender and recipient addresses, subject, date and text to your account, where it is stored as a note the same way as mail to the record address. Attachments are not sent. The add-in signs in with a personal token you make on the Account page; Outlook keeps the token in your mailbox's add-in settings, we store only a hash of it, and you can revoke it at any time. Microsoft's own policy covers Outlook and the Office add-in platform.
7.5 The report
A snapshot can be turned into a PDF report. To build it we ask the county's public parcel service for the owner of record and mailing address at that moment and ask the US Geological Survey's imagery service for an aerial of the parcel; neither is stored, the report is generated when you download it. For an account member the report is included and no purchase record is kept. For a purchase without an account, payment is taken by Stripe on its own checkout page: Stripe sees your card and billing details under its own policy, and we never do. We store the email address Stripe gives us, the amount, Stripe's session reference, the time of payment, a hash of the download link and how many times it was used, for as long as tax law requires. Owner names in a report are public record shown for due diligence on that site; using them for solicitation is against the terms of use and, in South Carolina, against state law.
7.6 Operations
Fly.io sees the network traffic and holds the database volume under its own policy. We keep ordinary server logs (request paths, times, addresses, errors) for up to 30 days to run the service. Snapshot results carry no personal data beyond a parcel number, and we keep them as long as the share link is expected to work.
8. Your Choices And Rights
- Delete local data: uninstall the Software and remove %APPDATA%\VDC.
- Stop the update check or help links: block newrootsdevelopment.co at your firewall; every tool keeps working.
- Have an uploaded file removed early: email Support@ with the link.
- Ask what we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted: email Support@newrootsdevelopment.co. We answer within 30 days. Where the California Consumer Privacy Act, the EU or UK GDPR, or a similar law applies to you, you have the rights those laws provide, and we honor them on request without discrimination.
- Withdraw consent: stop using the feature; nothing in the Software continues to send data after that.
9. Children
The Software is professional engineering software offered to businesses. It is not directed at children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data.
10. Security
Uploads and downloads use HTTPS. Uploaded files are stored on Cloudflare R2 with access limited to the link holder and New Roots administrators. License keys are signed so they cannot be altered, and contain no payment details.
11. Changes
We will post any change to this policy at the address above and in the PRIVACY.txt file shipped with the Software, with a new version number and effective date. Material changes will also appear in the release notes.
12. Contact
New Roots Development, LLC Support@newrootsdevelopment.co 843-455-2949 https://www.newrootsdevelopment.co