Frequently Asked Questions

About the exports

Are the DXF files perfect?

No, and we're honest about that. The exports are drawn from public map data (OpenStreetMap, county GIS services, and TIGER Census boundaries) and the quality of that data varies by region. A dense suburban area with active mappers will produce a near-perfect export. A rural area with sparse data will need more touch-up.

Even in the best case, you should expect to spend a few minutes trimming overhangs, connecting gaps at intersections, and cleaning up label placement. That's by design. Your expertise is what turns a rough starting draft into a finished drawing. We just get you to that starting point in seconds instead of hours.

What kind of cleanup should I expect?

• Trim road ends that extend beyond your box or past intersections
• Connect gaps where OSM data has small breaks between road segments
• Remove duplicates if the county parcel service returned overlapping geometry
• Reposition labels that landed on top of each other in dense areas
• Verify curves: roads with complex curves in the real world may be polyline approximations in OSM

How accurate is the geometry?

Accuracy depends on the data source. OpenStreetMap road centerlines are typically within a few feet of real-world position in populated areas, and further off in rural areas. Building footprints range from survey-grade (in cities with good aerial imagery contributions) to rough estimates elsewhere. County parcel boundaries, when available, reflect the assessor's official geometry and are usually the most accurate feature in an export.

RoadDXF is not a substitute for a survey. Do not use exports for legal descriptions, construction layout, or safety-critical work without verification.

Why is the parcel layer empty?

Parcel boundaries come from county assessor GIS services, and only some counties publish them publicly. The app tries to auto-detect a service for your area, then falls back to OpenStreetMap property-line data, then to TIGER Census block boundaries. If none of those have data for the area you drew, the parcel layer will be empty. Check the coverage map on the home page to see what tier your state or county has. We add new counties every week.

About parcel data, APNs, and property lines

What parcel data does RoadDXF pull, exactly?

For covered areas, RoadDXF queries the official county or state assessor GIS service and returns three things:

• Parcel polygons: the actual lot boundary lines, from assessor records
• APN (Assessor Parcel Number): the unique ID the county assigns to each parcel, also called a parcel number, folio number, or tax ID depending on the state
• Situs address: the physical location address of the parcel (see below)

All three land in named layers in the exported DXF. No signing up with county portals, no downloading shapefiles, no manual GIS steps.

What's a situs address, and why does it matter?

A situs address (also called a site address or physical address) is the address where the parcel is located, the one you'd GPS to. It is different from a mailing address, which may be a P.O. box or the property owner's home address somewhere else entirely.

RoadDXF only exports situs addresses because those are what's useful for field work, permit applications, and site identification. If a county's GIS data only exposes mailing addresses (or splits the address into separate number and street fields with no way to combine them), we exclude that service rather than give you bad data.

How do APNs and addresses appear in the DXF file?

Each parcel polygon is written to its own CAD layer. The APN and situs address are written as text entities placed inside the parcel boundary, auto-scaled to fit the lot. In AutoCAD, you'll see them as readable labels when you zoom in to a block or subdivision. If you only need the lot lines and not the labels, just freeze or delete the text layers. They are separate so you have full control.

What states and counties have real parcel coverage?

Coverage falls into three tiers:

• Statewide: every lot boundary, APN, and situs address in the state. Currently 38 states, including California, Florida, Texas, Ohio, Washington, Tennessee, Utah, Colorado, New York, Minnesota, and more.
• Additional metro coverage: individual county services for hundreds of counties in states not yet fully statewide, covering most large cities.
• Census blocks: rough block-level boundaries only, no individual lot lines or APNs, used as a last-resort fallback.

The interactive coverage map on the home page shows exactly what tier each state has. Hover or tap any state to see details.

Why do you pull from county GIS servers instead of a national parcel database?

County assessor GIS services are the authoritative source. They are the data that legal descriptions and tax records are based on. National aggregators exist, but they often lag behind, require expensive licensing, and still trace back to the same county source. Going direct means you get the most current geometry and the real APN, not a re-processed version of it. The tradeoff is that coverage depends on which counties publish open data, which is why it varies by state.

My area worked last month. Why is coverage different now?

Because RoadDXF reads live from county and state GIS servers instead of a frozen national copy, coverage tracks whatever those agencies publish. That is usually a good thing: you get current geometry and the real APN. The tradeoff is that agencies change things without announcing it. The most common reasons an area shifts:

• The service gets renamed. Wisconsin's statewide parcel service was renamed at the source, which broke every Wisconsin draw until we repointed it.
• A layer gets re-numbered inside the same service. Sumter County, South Carolina moved its parcel layer from index 2 to index 7. Same data, different address.
• The county moves to a new server. Oakland County, Michigan retired its old GIS host entirely and published at a new one.
• A service is published before its data is loaded. Will County, Illinois had a parcel service live with an empty layer list for a while.
• The data goes private. Occasionally an agency puts a previously open service behind a login or a paid license. South Carolina's DOT parcel service was open, then began requiring a token.

Most of the time a service that looks dead has simply moved, so we re-audit every registered service periodically and repoint or replace whatever has shifted. When a county genuinely goes dark and no public replacement exists, we mark it on the coverage map rather than leaving it looking covered.

You will always know before you export. The bounding box color and the status line reflect what we can actually deliver for that box: green for parcels with APNs and addresses, amber for partial coverage (APNs only, addresses only, or boundaries only), red for no parcel service, where the export falls back to OpenStreetMap property lines or census blocks. You will not get a silently empty parcel layer. If an area you rely on has changed, email support@roaddxf.com and we will look for a replacement source.

Is parcel data useful for make-ready engineering and utility design?

That's one of the primary use cases RoadDXF was built for. Make-ready engineers, fiber/telecom OSP designers, and utility planners need to know where property lines fall and who owns each parcel before placing poles, anchors, underground conduit, or joint use attachments. Having the APN, lot boundary, and road centerlines in the same DXF means you can:

• Identify parcel owners for easement requests and right-of-way negotiations
• Confirm pole and conduit placement relative to property lines
• Build permit submittal base maps without a separate GIS pull
• Hand off a clean starting drawing to the drafter instead of a blank canvas

What used to take hours of tracing, downloading county data, and aligning coordinate systems is one bounding box and one export.

Can I use parcel exports for site surveys or permit submittals?

As a base map and reference layer, yes. As a substitute for a legal survey, no. County assessor geometry is accurate enough for engineering design work and permitting research, but it should not be used for legal descriptions, construction stakeout, or any work that requires survey-grade precision. If your permit requires a licensed survey, RoadDXF gives you a head start, not the finished product.

International coverage

Does RoadDXF work outside the United States?

Yes, in a growing number of countries. Roads and building footprints work everywhere OpenStreetMap has data, which is essentially the whole world. Parcel boundaries and addresses depend on whether the country publishes an open cadastre service we can hook into. The interactive globe on the home page shows exactly which countries have parcel coverage. Drag to spin it, click any country to see what's available.

Which countries currently have parcel coverage?

As of this writing:

• United States — 38 states fully statewide plus 450+ individual metro counties. Around 90% of the US population is in a fully covered area.
• Australia — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT (Canberra) fully covered with real parcel IDs; NSW and the ACT also carry situs addresses ("101 ABERDARE ROAD ABERDARE"). Western Australia has lot lines only. Together about 98% of the population. South Australia and the Northern Territory are not yet covered.
• Netherlands — full national coverage via Kadaster. Lot boundaries and cadastral IDs (like "Amsterdam F 5049") for every parcel in the country. Street addresses come from OpenStreetMap.
• France — full national coverage via IGN Cadastre Express. Every parcel in metropolitan France and Corsica with cadastral IDs like "75101000AK0004". Overseas departments are not covered yet.
• Belgium — full coverage: Flanders and Brussels via GRB, Wallonia via the SPW CADMAP cadastre. Cadastral keys like "11002A1157/00A000".
• Germany (12 of 16 states) — North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin and Hamburg covered via each state's ALKIS service. Every parcel has a nationwide-unique Flurstueckskennzeichen; Hamburg parcels also carry street names.
• New Zealand — full national coverage via the LINZ NZ Parcels dataset. Every parcel carries its legal appellation (like "Lot 1 DP 528488").
• Norway — full national coverage via the Kartverket Matrikkelen. Every parcel has a matrikkel id in municipality-gnr/bnr form (like "0301-122/148").
• Spain — national coverage via the Direccion General del Catastro, plus the two foral territories the Catastro leaves out. Navarre is fully covered through IDENA (urban and rustic parcels), Alava through the Araba Katastroa, and Bizkaia through the Diputacion Foral (283,000 parcels). Gipuzkoa is the one Basque province still without an open cadastre.
• Czech Republic — full national coverage via the CUZK cadastre.
• Romania — full national coverage via ANCPI.
• Bulgaria — full national coverage via the GCCA cadastre.
• Slovenia, Finland, Estonia — full national coverage; Estonia's parcels also carry real situs addresses.
• Switzerland — most cantons (Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Basel, Ticino, St. Gallen, Aargau and more) via the geodienste.ch official survey. Vaud and Lucerne are not on the public tier yet.
• Italy (Bolzano / South Tyrol only) — the autonomous province of Bolzano is covered via its own open cadastre. The national service does not serve outside apps in real time.
• Canada (11 of 13 provinces and territories) — full provinces and territories: British Columbia (ParcelMap BC, over 2 million parcels), Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Manitoba covers the whole province except the City of Winnipeg (its data is restricted). Where the province keeps its cadastre commercial, individual cities and counties are covered. In Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa and Kingston (via the Rideau Valley conservation authority fabric), Cornwall, Peterborough city and county, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Brantford, Oakville and Burlington (with addresses), plus Hamilton, Simcoe County, Oxford County, Barrie, Oshawa, Thunder Bay, Guelph, Mississauga, Markham and Norfolk County (roll numbers), and London (property lines only). In Alberta: Calgary, Lethbridge, Leduc, Grande Prairie, St. Albert, Airdrie, Canmore and High River (with addresses), plus Strathcona County, Camrose and Medicine Hat (roll numbers). In Saskatchewan: Saskatoon (with addresses). Newfoundland and Nunavut are not covered yet.
• Colombia (near-national) — the IGAC national cadastre covers 6.8 million urban and rural parcels across most of the country, each with its national cadastral code. Four cities that run their own decentralised cadastre are wired in separately: Bogota D.C. (Catastro Distrital / IDECA), Medellin (310,000 lots with street addresses), Cartagena (170,000 parcels) and Soacha (62,000 parcels, Bogota’s largest satellite city). The remaining gaps are Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga and the rest of Antioquia department, which all keep their own cadastre outside IGAC. Where a parcel service has no address field, street addresses come from OpenStreetMap.
• Argentina (Cordoba Province) — the whole province via IDECOR, about 1.9 million parcels, each with its provincial cadastral nomenclature. Street addresses come from OpenStreetMap. Buenos Aires Province publishes a cadastre but keeps the query service switched off, so it cannot be added yet.
• Brazil (Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Curitiba, Joinville and more) — Brasilia and the entire Federal District via SEDUH (405,000 registered lots with the CIPU property code and addresses), Curitiba via IPPUC (309,000 cadastral lots with the Indicacao Fiscal and street addresses), Caxias do Sul (106,000 urban lots with the inscricao imobiliaria and street addresses), Canoas (85,000 lots with the setor-quadra-lote code and street addresses), Blumenau (85,000 lots with the indice cadastral), Joinville (142,000 lots with the indice cadastral) and Sao Leopoldo (71,000 lots with street addresses). Sao Paulo is covered via GeoSampa, at 1.69 million lots carrying the setor-quadra-lote code and street addresses.
• Chile (Maipu and Temuco) — the Santiago commune of Maipu (165,000 properties with the rol de avaluo and street addresses) and the commune of Temuco (149,000 properties with the rol). Chile keeps its national cadastre inside the tax authority and does not publish it, so coverage is commune by commune.
• Ecuador (Canton Ruminahui and Riobamba) — Sangolqui and the rest of Canton Ruminahui (40,000 parcels) plus Riobamba (74,000 parcels), both via their GAD municipal cadastres with the clave catastral. Ecuadorian cadastres are run canton by canton rather than nationally.
• United Kingdom (Thames Valley, Northumberland and Stirling) — property boundaries only, with no parcel reference or address, so street addresses come from OpenStreetMap. The data is Open Government Licence releases of the Land Registry INSPIRE polygons (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and rural Northumberland) and Registers of Scotland cadastral parcels (Stirling). Two things worth knowing: these cover freehold registered titles, so leasehold flats and unregistered land are simply absent, and HM Land Registry publishes the national dataset only as map images and bulk downloads, keeping the vector query service switched off. That is why there is no UK-wide coverage here.
• South Africa (national): full coverage of the cadastre in all nine provinces. Erven, agricultural holdings and farm portions, each carrying its 21-digit Surveyor-General key. Cape Town and eThekwini (Durban) go further and carry street addresses from their own municipal property registers, so a box drawn in either of those metros exports lot lines, property numbers and addresses together. George, Overstrand and Kouga carry addresses on over 90% of their parcels, and Swellendam, Theewaterskloof and Polokwane on part of theirs.
• Kenya (Nairobi): 150,000 plot boundaries across Nairobi County, each with its Land Reference number, published by Esri Eastern Africa. There is no national Kenyan cadastral service open to the public, so everywhere outside Nairobi falls back to OpenStreetMap.
• Uganda (Entebbe): 4,685 plots around Entebbe in Wakiso District, on the southern edge of the Greater Kampala metro, each with its Unique Parcel Identification Number. A small surveyed block rather than the whole metro, and the map is bounded to it.
• Rwanda (Kigali City and Gatsibo District): 560,000 parcels across all three Kigali districts and 378,000 in Gatsibo, from the National Land Authority, each with its Unique Parcel Identifier. The NLA publishes the other districts too, but stores them in a national projection that carries no EPSG code, which no map service can query by bounding box, so those areas fall back to OpenStreetMap.
• Trinidad (island-wide): 204,000 parcel boundaries from the national Cadastral Index at 1:10,000. Lot lines only. The published index carries no usable per-parcel number, so parcels come through as boundaries and addresses come from OpenStreetMap. Tobago is not in the dataset.
• Latvia (Cesis Municipality): 32,000 parcels, each with its cadastral designation. Latvia's national VZD cadastre is published, but its query service sits behind a login, so coverage is municipality by municipality.
• Turkey (Beylikduzu, Istanbul): 19,700 parcels in the Beylikduzu district on the western edge of Istanbul, each with its ada/parsel reference. Turkey's national TKGM parcel service is not open to browser queries, so coverage is district by district.
• Portugal (mainland): 1.79 million parcels from the national Cadastro Predial published by the Direcao-Geral do Territorio, each with its national cadastral reference. Portugal never finished its cadastre, so the coverage is real but uneven: Lisboa, Setubal, Santarem, Portalegre, Evora, Beja and Faro are covered municipality by municipality, the north is thin, and Aveiro and Viana do Castelo are absent. Madeira and the Azores are not in the dataset.
• Lithuania (national): full country coverage. 2.6 million parcels from the Registru centras real-property register, each with its cadastral number.
• Denmark (Aalborg and Sonderjylland): 125,000 parcels from municipal releases of the Geodatastyrelsen Matrikelkort, each carrying its matrikelnummer and ejerlav. Denmark publishes the national Matrikel as bulk downloads rather than a live query service, so coverage is region by region.
• Poland (west of Warsaw): 274,000 dzialki ewidencyjne across seventeen gminas including Pruszkow, Ozarow Mazowiecki, Blonie, Zyrardow and Sochaczew, each with its full parcel identifier.
• Slovakia (Bratislava and Poprad): 83,000 parcels from the kataster nehnutelnosti, each with its cislo parcely.
• Croatia (Zagreb, Sesvete and Delnice): 289,000 katastarske cestice with their parcel numbers.
• Ukraine (Liubeshiv, Volyn): 46,000 parcels, each with its full Ukrainian cadastral number. The State Land Cadastre publishes a public viewer but no open query service, so coverage is hromada by hromada.
• Peru (San Juan de Lurigancho and Ate, Lima): 277,000 urban lots identified by manzana and lote.
• Costa Rica (Heredia): 48,000 predios, each with the 14-digit catastral identifier from the plano catastrado.
• Namibia (Swakopmund): 20,000 erven with their erf numbers, from the municipal property register.
• New Caledonia (Grand Noumea, Thio and Bouloupari): 40,000 parcels from the DITTT cadastre.
• El Salvador (San Salvador and La Libertad): 325,000 parcels from the Centro Nacional de Registros, each with its clave catastral. The CNR does not publish the rest of the country as an open service, so Santa Ana, Sonsonate and San Miguel are not covered.
• Lebanon (Beirut): 21,000 cadastral parcels, each with its zone-prefixed parcel id.
• Greece (Thermi, Thessaloniki): 7,900 parcels from the national Ktimatologio, each with its 12-digit KAEK code.
• Panama (San Miguelito): 5,400 predios with their 13-digit national predio codes.
• Mexico (Jalisco): 2 million parcel boundaries across the state, including Guadalajara, Zapopan and Puerto Vallarta, from Visor Urbano. Lot lines only. The published layer carries no cadastral key, so parcels come through as boundaries and addresses come from OpenStreetMap.

More countries are being added regularly. If a country publishes an open cadastre API, it can usually be wired in quickly.

My country isn't on the list. Can you add it?

Probably, if the country publishes a public cadastre service. Email support@roaddxf.com with your country name and a link to your national or regional cadastre site if you know it. Countries that publish open WFS or ArcGIS services (most of the EU, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and a growing list in South America and Africa) can usually be added in under an hour. Countries that paywall their cadastre (UK, Sweden, Italy at national level) are harder because we'd have to license data instead of pulling from open APIs.

Can I use RoadDXF in Japan, or any country whose parcel data is download-only?

Yes, with one extra setup step. A few countries publish their cadastre as open data but only as bulk files, not as a live service RoadDXF can query when you draw a box. Japan is the main example. The Ministry of Justice released the national Registry Map Data (Toukisho Sonaetsuke Chizu, the official parcel boundaries and land numbers or chiban) into the public domain in 2023, but it ships as bulk MOJ Map XML packages rather than a queryable server, so there is no live endpoint to wire in the way there is for Germany or New Zealand.

You can still pull those parcels into RoadDXF using the custom parcel URL field in the sidebar:

1. Download the MOJ Map XML for your target municipality from the G-spatial Information Center.
2. Convert it to GeoJSON or shapefile. The free open-source mojxml-py tool or the MIERUNE MOJXML Loader plugin for QGIS both do this and handle the Japan Plane Rectangular coordinate reprojection for you.
3. Publish the result as a public Feature Layer on a free ArcGIS Online account.
4. Paste that Feature Server URL into the Parcel URL box in the RoadDXF sidebar, with the parcel-number field name in the APN box.

After that, when you draw a box over your site RoadDXF overlays the Japanese parcels and packages them in the DXF alongside the OpenStreetMap roads and buildings, exactly like a built-in country. Units switch to meters automatically for any draw outside the United States. The same custom-URL approach works for any region that has a public ArcGIS Feature Server, WFS, or hosted GeoJSON layer you can point us at.

What's different about exports outside the US?

The DXF format and layer structure are identical. You still get ROADS, PARCELS, APNS, ADDRESSES, and BUILDINGS as separate layers ready for AutoCAD. The differences are:

• APN format varies. A US APN looks like "020-340-15"; a Dutch cadastral aanduiding looks like "Amsterdam F 5049"; an NSW property ID is a numeric "1234567". Same field, same DXF layer, different format.
• Address coverage varies. Some countries publish full situs addresses with the parcel data (NSW), some publish only the cadastral ID and addresses live on a separate service (Netherlands, where we currently fall back to OSM street names). The interactive coverage map shows which countries have full addresses vs. APN-only.
• Units default to meters. Draw a box outside the United States and the DXF units selector automatically switches to meters (you can still switch back to feet by hand). US draws default to feet as always.
• Coordinate system. All exports are projected to a local feet-or-meters scale regardless of the country's native CRS, so AutoCAD opens the file at the right size with no manual transform.

For make-ready drafters and OSP engineers

How do I export a map to DXF for AutoCAD without hand-tracing?

Draw a bounding box on the RoadDXF map, pick your layers, and click Export. You get a DXF with road centerlines, road edges, building footprints, parcel lot lines, and APNs -- ready to open in AutoCAD in seconds. No hand-tracing, no shapefile downloads, no coordinate system alignment. A base map that used to take hours to set up comes out in under a minute.

You still do the drafting. RoadDXF just gets you to a real starting point instead of a blank canvas.

What makes RoadDXF different from Cadmapper?

The main difference is parcel data. RoadDXF pulls lot boundaries, APN (Assessor Parcel Number), and situs address from official county assessor GIS services and puts them in the DXF. Cadmapper produces road and building geometry but does not include parcel data or APNs.

For make-ready and OSP work where you need to know where property lines fall and who owns each parcel, that distinction matters. RoadDXF also draws directly from county GIS sources in 37 states statewide -- reaching about 85% of the US population, so the parcel geometry matches official assessor records rather than a third-party re-process.

How do I get parcel numbers (APNs) into AutoCAD for a make-ready job?

Draw a box around your project area. RoadDXF queries the county assessor GIS service, pulls every parcel polygon, APN, and situs address inside that box, and writes them as text entities placed inside the lot boundaries in the DXF. In AutoCAD they appear as readable labels when you zoom in. The APN layer and address layer are separate so you can freeze either one independently.

Parcel coverage is available for 37 states statewide, reaching about 85% of the US population. The coverage map on the home page shows your area's tier.

Can I get a fiber or telecom route base map without a GIS license?

Yes. RoadDXF pulls from public ArcGIS services and OpenStreetMap -- no GIS seat, no license, no shapefile wrangling. Draw your route corridor, export, open in AutoCAD. For most OSP route design in covered areas you will have road centerlines, building footprints, and parcel data in one DXF without touching a GIS application at all.

What layers does a make-ready drafter get in the export?

Road centerlines, road edge lines, road name labels, building footprints, parcel lot boundaries, APN labels, situs address labels, waterways, and verges. Each is on its own named layer. Most make-ready drafters keep centerlines, edges, buildings, and parcels on and freeze the rest. You control which layers are included before you even click Export, so the DXF stays clean from the start.

Utility poles are not pulled from public data. If you have KMZ or KML files with pole locations, you can upload them and they will come through as their own layer in the DXF export.

Can I use RoadDXF for utility make-ready work (poles, anchors, joint use)?

Yes. Road centerlines, parcel lot lines, and building footprints in a single DXF give you a solid starting draft for a make-ready drawing. Parcel boundaries and APNs let you flag easements and identify parcel owners for right-of-way and joint-use attachment work without a separate GIS pull. The export is a starting draft -- your knowledge of the job and the field are still what make it a make-ready drawing.

Does RoadDXF replace a GIS department for OSP design?

For base map generation and parcel lookups, it handles a big chunk of what people used to need GIS software for. You still need engineering judgment for complex analysis. But if your need is "give me road lines and parcel boundaries for this two-mile route corridor in AutoCAD," RoadDXF covers that without a GIS seat, a data subscription, or a 45-minute download-and-reproject workflow.

Map to CAD and Google Earth to AutoCAD

How do I convert a map to CAD (AutoCAD DXF) without hand-tracing?

RoadDXF automates the whole map-to-CAD process. Draw a bounding box around your project area on the interactive map, select which layers you need, and click Export. You get a production-ready DXF in seconds with road centerlines, road edges, building footprints, parcel lot lines, and APN labels on properly named CAD layers. Open it directly in AutoCAD, BricsCAD, or DraftSight.

No hand-tracing. No shapefile downloads. No coordinate system alignment. A map-to-CAD conversion that used to take hours comes out in under a minute.

How do I get Google Earth into AutoCAD without tracing pixels?

The traditional workflow is to load a Google Earth screenshot as an underlay in AutoCAD and trace road lines and buildings by hand. RoadDXF skips all of that. Draw your area on the RoadDXF map (same satellite imagery underneath), click Export, and you get vector road lines, building footprints, and property boundaries already drawn as DXF entities -- no tracing, no underlay alignment.

For most make-ready and utility design jobs, this replaces the Google Earth trace entirely. You get cleaner geometry, proper layer names, and parcel data that no satellite trace can give you.

Can I use RoadDXF to build a permit submittal base map?

Yes, that is one of the primary use cases. Permit submittals for utility construction, ROW work, and fiber deployments typically require a base map showing road geometry, property lines, and APN or parcel identification. RoadDXF produces all of that in one export:

• Road centerlines and edge lines
• Parcel lot boundaries with APN labels
• Situs addresses inside each lot
• Building footprints

Draw a box around the permit area, export, open in AutoCAD, and add your design on top. The geometry comes from official county assessor GIS and OpenStreetMap, the same sources many permitting agencies use themselves. For most design and engineering permit packages, this is accurate enough to use as the base map layer.

What does a make-ready engineer typically use RoadDXF for?

Make-ready engineers use it to skip the part of the job that isn't engineering: tracing satellite imagery, downloading county parcel files, aligning projections, and building an AutoCAD base from scratch. With RoadDXF that starting drawing exists in under a minute.

Specific tasks it supports:

• Building permit base maps for fiber, telecom, and utility projects
• Pulling parcel lot lines and APNs for ROW, easement, and joint-use work
• Confirming pole, anchor, and conduit placement relative to property lines
• Generating a clean drafter-ready starting file instead of a blank canvas
• Route corridor analysis with road, building, and parcel geometry together

It covers 37 states statewide, reaching about 85% of the US population.

About billing

How does the free trial work?

New accounts get 3 exports with no payment required. You can see the full product at full quality before deciding whether to subscribe. If 3 exports are enough to prove it to you, you probably won't need a subscription — and that's fine.

Can I change plans anytime?

Yes. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period. You keep access to your current tier through the end of any period you've already paid for.

Do you offer refunds?

No — because of the free trial, all paid subscriptions are final. But you can cancel anytime to stop future charges, and you keep access through the period you already paid for. See our Refund Policy for details.

What happens if I hit my export limit?

Exports are blocked until the start of your next billing month, or until you upgrade to a higher tier. You'll see an upgrade prompt in the app when you hit the limit.

About your data

What do you store about me?

Your email address, your subscription tier and status, and a running count of exports used this month. That's it. We do not store your bounding boxes, your downloaded DXF files, or your credit card information. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Who can see my exports?

Only you. Exports are generated in your browser and downloaded directly to your computer — they never pass through our servers.

About the product

Is RoadDXF still being developed?

Yes. This is an active project, and new features ship regularly. If there's a layer, format, or workflow you wish existed, let us know. User requests directly shape the roadmap.

Can I use RoadDXF exports in commercial work?

Yes, DXF files you generate are yours to use, including commercial drafting, client deliverables, and redistribution as part of a larger project. The underlying map data from OpenStreetMap is covered by the Open Database License (ODbL). For most drafting uses this is not a concern, but if you publish the map itself (as opposed to incorporating it into a larger design), you should credit OpenStreetMap.

Does RoadDXF work outside the United States?

Yes. Road, building, address, and waterway layers work worldwide wherever OpenStreetMap has coverage. Parcel boundary features are U.S.-only, because they depend on U.S. county GIS services and the TIGER Census.

What CAD software does the DXF work with?

AutoCAD (full and LT), BricsCAD, DraftSight, and any other DXF-compatible CAD application. We target the AC1015 / R2000 DXF format, which is broadly supported.

Can I customize which layers are exported?

Yes. The sidebar has toggles for each feature class: road edges, centerlines, road names, buildings, addresses, parcels, verges, waterways, mile markers, and more. Turn off what you don't need so your DXF stays clean. If you upload a KMZ or KML file with utility pole locations, those also get their own toggle.

Still have a question?

Email support@roaddxf.com. We aim to respond within two business days. If it's a bug, a screenshot and the approximate area you were exporting both help us diagnose it quickly.