Convert Plex-Earth Imagery to a raster image file, save it locally on your computer, and take advantage of our up-to-date, high-quality available datasets, for imports into other software.
Introduction
When imagery is imported into AutoCAD with Plex-Earth, these images are stored in our servers and automatically re-fetched and displayed by the software each time the drawing is opened. This is very convenient, as it basically means that AutoCAD users do not have to worry about external references or large files. Adding to that, the completely free Plex-Earth Lite version makes Plex-Earth imagery available to people who do not own a Plex-Earth subscription, making imagery sharing easier than ever.
However, there are cases where creating a local copy of the imagery is required. For example, the user might want to work offline or import the drawing file into other software, like InfraWorks, SketchUp, 3ds Max, etc.
As such, this tutorial constitutes a breakdown of all the necessary steps for converting mosaics imported with Plex-Earth to raster images and saving them locally to a hard drive.
Click here to see a full list of the Basemap and Premium providers that offer this feature.
For those providers that do not allow by their Terms of Use to legally download their content, a Plex-Earth subscription (paid version or Lite) is still necessary for users who want to re-load Plex-Earth imagery when a drawing file is shared with them.
The ability to convert imagery to raster images and save them locally is available only in the Plex-Earth Professional and Business plans, as part of the Create Imagery feature. Here's how you can do it:
Step 2: Convert Plex-Earth Imagery to Raster Image
Step 1: Create Imagery
Before importing imagery, the drawing must be georeferenced.
Then, imagery can be created, as described in this tutorial.
Step 2: Convert Plex-Earth Imagery to Raster Image
1) Click “Insert” on the Collection Manager, and then select “As Raster Image(s)”.
2) On the command line, choose the format of the image for the specific file type you would like the raster image to be saved as.
The raster image can be saved in PNG, JPG, or TIFF format.
PNG files support transparency but JPG files do not. This may affect the newly created raster file, especially when working with images with applied clipping borders or cutouts which affect image shape. However, the png format will result in larger file size for your raster image compared to the jpeg option.
3) Create the raster image with the following options:
- To create a raster image for a specific part of the mosaic, you can use the mouse pointer to draw a rectangle by defining its first and second corner points, as shown in the below video:
- To create a raster image for the entire mosaic, either create a rectangle as described above by completely enclosing the mosaic to fully select it or select the “Entire Mosaic” option on the command line.
Plex-Earth will then save the newly created raster file in the folder containing your drawing file along with an accompanying World File, and import it into your drawing. In case there's no drawing folder, Plex-Earth will create a new folder titled ''Plex-Earth'' on your desktop and use it to store the newly created raster file.
In any case, you will receive a notification regarding the destination folder that was used by the software.
Conclusion
Having the imported imagery stored locally on your hard drive is very convenient, especially when an AutoCAD drawing must be used in other software. Plex-Earth offers a great variety of tools, providing users with the ability to handle imagery in any way they want.
We hope that you have found this introduction on how to convert Plex-Earth Imagery to raster imagery, helpful. Feel free to contact us at support@plexscape.com for any questions you may still have.
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Compatibility includes:
AutoCAD Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020
Civil 3D® Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020
AutoCAD Architecture Version: 2025, 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020