Molecular cloud sample of the survey area seen from a bird’s eye perspective. The figure is centred on the Sun, and the Galactic centre is at (0,0). The colour corresponds to the molecular mass of the cloud, and the size corresponds to the physical size of the cloud. Clouds with a maximum extinction below 3 mag are marked in grey. The thin grey circles are spaced by 0.4 kpc and are examples of what solar centred apertures would contain. The angles marked with l mark the Galactic longitude.