Google Earth to AutoCAD, without the KML detour
Draw a box on the same aerial you were looking at in Google Earth and download a production-ready DXF for AutoCAD. No KML export, no file converter, no plugin, and no coordinate distortion to untangle later.
3 FREE EXPORTS / MONTH · NO CREDIT CARD
Why the usual Google Earth path is painful
If you have ever tried to get Google Earth into AutoCAD, you know the standard route has a few too many steps:
- Trace placemarks and paths by hand in Google Earth, save a KML or KMZ, then find a converter that turns it into DXF.
- Watch the geometry land in the wrong place because the KML is in latitude and longitude while your drawing is in State Plane or UTM feet.
- Pay per conversion, or upload your file to a server you do not control, just to get a flat pile of lines on one layer.
- Realize Google Earth never had road edges, parcel lines, or addresses in the first place, so you are back to hand-tracing the imagery anyway.
Google Earth is a great place to look at a site. It was never built to hand you CAD geometry.
How RoadDXF does it instead
Find your site on the map
Open the app and search an address or pan to the same spot you had open in Google Earth. The base map is real aerial and street imagery, so you are drawing over what you already recognize.
Draw a box and pick layers
Click and drag a bounding box around the area. Toggle what you want: road edges, centerlines, road names, building footprints, parcel boundaries, APNs, and situs addresses.
Export and open in AutoCAD
RoadDXF pulls the data live, builds a DXF in your browser, and downloads it. Every feature is on its own named layer, already in real-world scale. Open it in AutoCAD, BricsCAD, Civil 3D, or any DXF editor.
What you get that Google Earth never had
- Road edges and centerlines as clean polylines, ready to trim and offset.
- Building footprints as closed polylines, not a screenshot to trace.
- Parcel boundaries with APNs and situs addresses from official county and state GIS, in the United States.
- Real coordinates. The DXF comes out in a projected, real-world scale so it lines up with your survey and your title block.
- Named layers, so you can freeze, thaw, and isolate feature types the way you already work.
RoadDXF vs. KML converters
| Step | KML export plus a converter | RoadDXF |
|---|---|---|
| Get the geometry | Trace it by hand in Google Earth first | Draw one box, the data is pulled for you |
| Install anything | Converter app, plugin, or GDAL | Nothing, it runs in the browser |
| Coordinates | Lat/long, often lands in the wrong place | Projected, real-world scale |
| Parcels, APNs, addresses | Not available in Google Earth | Included from county GIS (US) |
| Layer structure | Usually one flat layer | Named layers per feature type |
| Cost | Per conversion or subscription | 3 free exports a month, plans from $19 |
Straight talk: a RoadDXF export is a starting draft, not a finished drawing. Public map data is not perfect, so you will still trim overhangs, connect gaps, and tune labels. What used to take hours of hand-tracing now takes minutes of cleanup.
Common questions
Do I need a KML or KMZ file first?
No. That is the whole point. You do not export anything out of Google Earth. You draw a box on the RoadDXF map and it pulls the road, building, parcel, and address data for that area directly.
Will the drawing be in the right coordinates?
Yes. The DXF is generated in a projected, real-world scale rather than raw latitude and longitude, so it aligns properly when you bring it into your drawing.
Can I get parcel lines and APNs?
In the United States, yes, for the roughly 90% of the population in a covered county. Google Earth never had parcels. RoadDXF pulls them from official county and state GIS. Check the live coverage map on the home page for your exact county.
What CAD programs does it work with?
The export is a standard DXF (AC1015, AutoCAD 2000 format), which opens in AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, BricsCAD, Civil 3D, DraftSight, and essentially every DXF-compatible editor.
Try it on your own site
Your first three exports every month are free, no credit card. You see the full product at full quality before deciding anything.