Introduction
Plex-Earth offers a feature for engineers to view their site in the quickest way possible, by simply copying the geolocation details of an area in Google Earth and displaying the image through the use of our newest feature, Quick Site View. This method also eliminates the need to georeference a drawing manually, as Plex-Earth will automatically do it for you.
In the following tutorial, the process of creating imagery views in CAD from Google Earth is described in a few simple steps.
Step 1: Create a placemark in Google Earth
First, locate your project on Google Earth. Create a placemark by clicking on the Add Placemark button from the toolbar.
Position your placemark on a specific point on your project, label it on the pop-up window, and click on OK.
Right-click on the placemark and choose Copy to copy its geographic location details.
Open a drawing in AutoCAD or BricsCAD, and start Plex-Earth by accessing the Plex-Earth Lite ribbon >> click on Start Plex-Earth.
On the Contextual Data panel, click on Quick Site View.
A small box will pop up, which notifies you that a Google Earth element has been identified. Click on Accept, and a Quick View will be created for your area.
This is what it would look like when done.
Plex-Earth will automatically calculate the zoom level required for the displayed image of your defined area to occupy the extents of the current viewport of the CAD workspace.
In case you would like to alter the current viewport, zoom in or out in your drawing, click on the (-) or (+) symbols on the Quick View palette.
You will also have the option to specify a certain area in your drawing that you'd want an image of by clicking on Specify another area.
The palette will also show the quality of the imagery produced (zoom level and area size in sq. m or sq. km).
The drawing is also automatically georeferenced by Plex-Earth from the data copied from Google Earth, so there is no need to do this manually via CAD or Plex-Earth. This can be validated by checking the georeference settings of the drawing. To do so, click on Assign Georeference on the Project panel of the Plex-Earth Lite ribbon.
The longitude and latitude data came from the geographic location details copied from the placemark created on Google Earth, and the corresponding point on the CAD workspace will be automatically placed at the origin (0,0) of the coordinate plane. If you examine the imagery from Google Maps in CAD closely, the origin is situated exactly where the placemark was placed in Google Earth.
There you have it!
Wasn't that quick and easy? You now have a clear view of your project site, and the sweetest thing is that it comes free of charge! This is especially helpful in pre-construction, projects in remote areas, site progression, and many more. Plex-Earth Lite is an extraordinary tool to utilize for engineers to boost their designs and productivity.
We hope that you have found this tutorial about creating views in CAD for your area in Google Earth of Plex-Earth Lite, helpful. Feel free to contact us at support@plexscape.com for any questions you may still have.
Don't have Plex-Earth Lite yet? Install it for free and explore its benefits now! Or, see how you can switch from a Plex-Earth trial to Lite here.
Compatibility includes:
AutoCAD, Civil 3D®, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD MEP, AutoCAD Plant 3D: 2026 , 2025 , 2024 , 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020
BricsCAD (Pro, Mechanical, BIM, Ultimate): V25 , V24 , V23 , V22 , V21