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.
But the satellite imagery itself didn’t come through—only the vector outline of my polygon did. So here’s the trick pros use: how to use google earth in autocad
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. I opened Google Earth Pro (the free desktop
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.” In AutoCAD, I used the command
In seconds, AutoCAD placed a of the exact area. A little red pin showed north, and the drawing units automatically adjusted to real-world coordinates (usually UTM or Lat/Long).
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).