How do I get a CAD file of my property?

Public agencies publish parcel maps, GIS layers and scanned records, but not a CAD file of your lot. AEC First Phase compiles those public pieces — parcel geometry, building footprints, lidar contours, aerials and the recorded maps — into one DXF for a Los Angeles County property, on State Plane coordinates. It is a tentative base drawing, not a survey.

Open the sample project or enter an address

The sample project’s drawing, 1635 Woods Dr

File: DXF, AutoCAD 2000 format
Coordinates: State Plane California Zone 5, US survey feet (EPSG:2229)
Layers: 37 that hold something
Price: $5 unlocks the property’s whole package

The compiled drawing of 1635 Woods Dr with its image underlays switched off: lot lines in green, building footprints in brown, tract map outlines in magenta, record nodes in red and blue, contours, and the list of layers — **Lot lines**The neighboring parcels, from the county’s parcel geometry.

**Building footprints**From the regional aerial survey.

**Tract map outlines**The extent of each recorded tract map, in magenta.

**Record nodes**One per record of survey or tract map, each a hyperlink to the agency’s document.

**Corner records**At the monuments they describe.

**City control points**With the field-book reference beside each.

**Zoning**The zone label, linked to the City’s zoning page.

**Layers**Everything is on its own layer. Switch them in the viewer or in your own CAD program.

The sample project’s compiled drawing in the package viewer, with the aerial and map underlays switched off and the index contours on.

What public data can give you

Everything in the drawing comes from a public source and sits where that source puts it. The lot lines are the county’s parcel geometry — the same lines the assessor’s map and every map app draw. Building footprints come from the regional aerial survey. The 1-foot contours and spot elevations are generated from public lidar. The aerial photographs are placed as underlays on the same coordinates. Each record of survey, tract map and corner record found near the lot is drawn as an outline or a node, hyperlinked to the agency’s document.

Inside the City of Los Angeles the drawing also carries the City’s sewer, easement and right-of-way layers, where the City’s map service publishes them. The file is a DXF on State Plane California Zone 5, in US survey feet, so it opens to scale in any CAD program.

The same drawing as it opens, with the aerial underlay on.

What it cannot give you

A drawing compiled from public records is accurate, not precise. County parcel lines are drawn for assessment and mapping, not measured on the ground; they are not the boundary a land surveyor would establish, and they can be off. The drawing sets no boundary, shows no easement that is not in a published layer, and locates no building, wall or utility by measurement.

The drawing carries the note “Tentative – not survey grade”, and every printed sheet carries “Tentative – not survey accurate. Compiled from public agency records.”

Use it as the first base for concepts, feasibility and estimates. Replace it with a survey before design development, and before anything is built to a line.

The site plan base sheet printed from the drawing: the lot and its neighbors, an aerial view, a vicinity map and the notes — The 11 × 17 sheet printed from the drawing, and its foot at reading size: the notes and the line every sheet carries.

The foot of the sheet at reading size: the notes, and the line “Tentative – not survey accurate. Compiled from public agency records.” — The 11 × 17 sheet printed from the drawing, and its foot at reading size: the notes and the line every sheet carries.

The layers in the compiled drawing

These are the 37 layers that hold something in the sample project’s drawing — 1635 Woods Dr, Los Angeles — with the color the drawing gives each one. A property outside the City of Los Angeles has no City layers, and a county that publishes no building footprints has none to draw.

Layer, what it holds, and the number of entities on it in the sample drawing.
Layer	What it holds	Entities
The property and its neighbors
SUBJECT_PARCEL	The property’s outline, from the county’s parcel geometry.	54
LARIAC_PARCELS	The lot lines of the neighboring parcels.	2,310
LARIAC_BUILDINGS	Building footprints from the regional aerial survey.	2,538
LARIAC_ROADS	Street centerlines.	268
ROAD-NAMES	Street name labels.	5
ROW-SIDELINE	Right-of-way sidelines from the City’s map layers.	364
ZONING	The zone label, linked to the City’s zoning page for the lot.	4
Recorded surveys and maps
FOOTPRINT_RECORDS_OF_SURVEY	The outline of each record of survey on or near the lot.	14
REF_RECORDS_OF_SURVEY	A reference node per record of survey, hyperlinked to the document.	28
FOOTPRINT_TRACT_MAPS	The outline of each recorded tract map.	22
REF_TRACT_MAPS	A reference node per tract map, hyperlinked to the document.	40
REF_CORNER_RECORDS	Corner records at the monuments they describe, hyperlinked.	48
REF_CITY_CONTROL_POINTS	City survey control points, linked to their field-book pages.	198
Terrain
NOAA-CONT-1FT	1-foot contours from lidar.	603
NOAA-CONT-INDEX	Index contours.	73
NOAA-SPOT-ELEV	Spot elevations.	104
CONTOURS_2FT	The county’s 2-foot contours for the wider area.	103,809
CONTOURS_10FT	The county’s 10-foot contours for the wider area.	20,651
SLOPE-10PCT	Where the ground steepens past a 10 percent slope.	1,686
SLOPE-15PCT	Where it steepens past 15 percent.	1,330
SLOPE-25PCT	Where it steepens past 25 percent.	802
SLOPE-50PCT	Where it steepens past 50 percent.	824
Easements and utilities
EASE-SEWER	Sewer easements from the City’s map layers.	18
UTIL-SEWER-MH	Sewer structures (maintenance holes).	12
UTIL-SEWER-LATERAL	Sewer laterals.	8
STORM-BASIN	Drainage basins.	2
Other City map layers
SPEC-HILLSIDE-ORD	The Hillside Ordinance area.	2
Image underlays
NOAA-AERIAL	The aerial photograph, placed on the drawing’s coordinates.	1
ASSESSOR-AERIAL	The assessor’s aerial of the lot.	1
ASSESSORS MAP	The assessor’s map page, placed as an image.	2
LOCATION MAP	The location map.	2
VICINITY MAP	The vicinity map the sheets print.	2
The drawing’s own notes
00-TENTATIVE	The note the drawing carries: tentative, not survey grade.	1
00-COMPILED-EXTENT	The extent the drawing was compiled for.	3
00-INDEX-SHEET	The drawing’s index sheet.	25
00-LAYER-CATALOG	The layer catalog: each layer’s data copied into its own labeled cell beside the map.	638
00-CATALOG-NOTE	The catalog’s note.	1

How to open it

Open the DXF in any CAD program or a free viewer (Autodesk Viewer online, DWG TrueView, LibreCAD) to measure and annotate. The record nodes are hyperlinks: in AutoCAD and most CAD programs, Ctrl+click one and the agency’s own copy of that record opens in your browser.

The package holds other drawings beside the compiled one: the terrain contours and the slope lines as their own DXFs, the City’s map layers as a DXF, the assessor’s base drawing, and the 3D massing model as OBJ and DXF.

The 3D massing model: terrain with the surrounding buildings as blocks and the subject building in red — One of the other drawings: the 3D massing model, from public building footprints and lidar terrain. Not a survey.

Outside Los Angeles County

The same drawing is compiled in nine more California counties — Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Kern and Imperial — from what each county publishes, on that county’s own State Plane zone. Where a county publishes no building footprints or no survey-record index, those layers are absent and the package says why.

What is collected, county by county

Open the sample project

The sample is 1635 Woods Dr, Los Angeles, shown view-only. AEC First Phase is not affiliated with this property or its owners.