How To Use Google Earth In Autocad -

I went back to Google Earth, captured a fresh top-down screenshot (without any added polygons), and saved it as a JPG. Back in AutoCAD, I used the command and placed that JPG.

It was a Tuesday afternoon when my client sent me a frantic email: “The new utility shed needs to align exactly with the existing gravel road and that stand of pine trees. But the site survey is two years old.”

He replied, “How did you do that without a new survey?” how to use google earth in autocad

I traced the gravel road over the aligned image using a polyline. I drew the shed’s foundation 12 feet from the road and 30 feet south of the largest pine tree. Because the underlying map was real-world coordinates, I could even extract elevation points from Google Earth’s terrain (by exporting a contour KML and importing it as 3D polylines).

I added a simple polygon over the gravel road and saved it as a KML file. Then I used to export a high-resolution screenshot of the area. But that alone wouldn’t work—it had no scale in AutoCAD. I went back to Google Earth, captured a

Two hours later, I sent the client a DWG with the shed, the road, and a note: “Coordinates match Google Earth’s current imagery. Verified with two known landmarks.”

Now I needed to scale it. I measured a known feature in Google Earth—for example, the distance between two fence posts was 150 feet. In AutoCAD, I used the command. I picked two points on the JPG, then two corresponding points on the geolocated KML outline. The image stretched, rotated, and snapped perfectly into place. But the site survey is two years old

I opened Google Earth Pro (the free desktop version) and navigated to the client’s property. I made sure the layer was on and tilted the view to see the topography around the trees. Then I went to View → Reset → Tilt and Compass to get a pure top-down view.