Save Plex-Earth Imagery as a raster image on your computer and take advantage of its up-to-date, high-quality available datasets, for imports to other software.
Introduction
When imagery is imported in AutoCAD with Plex-Earth, these images are stored in our servers and automatically re-fetched and shown by our software, each time the drawing is opened. This is very convenient, as the AutoCAD user does not have to worry about external references or large files. Adding to that, our low-cost Viewer makes the Plex-Earth imagery available to people who do not own a Plex-Earth 5 subscription, thus making imagery sharing very easy.
However, there are cases, where creating a local copy of imagery is required. For example, you might want to work offline or import your .dwg drawing to other software, like InfraWorks, SketchUp, 3ds Max etc.
Therefore, in this tutorial, we will go through all the necessary steps, in order to download and save locally to your hard drive imagery created with Plex-Earth.
The providers who offer this capability are the following:
- Nearmap (Premium)
- Bing Maps
- OpenStreetMap
- Any Custom Map created.
Some providers, like Google Maps, do not allow, by their Terms of Use, to legally download locally their content. In those cases, a Plex-Earth 5 license or a Viewer is necessary.
The ability to save images locally is only available in the Plex-Earth 5 Business plan, as part of the Mosaic Feature.
Step 1: Import a Mosaic
Before importing a mosaic, the drawing must be georeferenced.
More about how to create a mosaic, here.
Step 2: Locally Save the Mosaic Tiles
In order to locally save the imagery tiles that make up the mosaic, follow the steps below:
1) Click "Save" from the Imagery Manager.
2) Select the folder where you want Plex-Earth 5 to save the imagery tiles.
3) Each imagery tile is now stored in your computer along with an accompanying World File.
4) A message will pop-up, in order to open the folder where the images were stored.
Step 3: Bring the saved tiles into AutoCAD as raster images
In the previous drawing, the Plex-Earth's imagery is already available for viewing. But let's suppose that we have a new drawing, where we want to import the downloaded imagery.
In order to do that:
1) Go to the "Raster Tools" panel, in the Plex-Earth's ribbon, and click "Import World File".
2) Go to the folder where you saved the mosaic tiles in the previous step.
3) Select all the mosaic tiles and click "Open".
The mosaic tiles are now placed in AutoCAD in the correct coordinates.
Warning: Remember to define the coordinate system of your drawing, before performing any import.
Step 4: Merge the Mosaic Tiles
Although all these tiles are imported as separate images, Plex-Earth 5 has a very useful tool, for merging all these images and creating one big image, containing all the previous ones.
The steps for this are:
1) Select all the mosaic tiles.
2) Click the "Merge Images" command of Plex-Earth, from the "Raster Tools" panel.
3) Define where you want to save the new image that will be created by combining all the previous tiles. Moreover, type a file name and click "Save".
Now, in AutoCAD, you can see your mosaic as one image only!
NOTE: If the mosaic contains too many tiles, instead of one, two or more merged
images will be created. This is a limitation on how AutoCAD handles very large
images.
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, thus helping the user to handle the imagery in any way he wants. Whether using your subscription tiles or by using Mosaic Images from Premium Providers, never feel restricted. Enjoy the freedom that Plex-Earth 5 offers!
Feel free to contact us at support@plexscape.com for any questions you may have and don’t forget to start your free trial today.