Topography and contour lines in DXF
Get the topography of a site — a terrain mesh and contour lines — for AutoCAD, Rhino or SketchUp in a minute.
Open urban:EXPORT — free No sign-up · 3 areas a day up to 5 km² free · up to 100 km²
How to get it
- Open urban:EXPORT and find the place: search by city, address or coordinates, or drag the map.
- Choose the area shape — square, circle or a free rectangle — and its size (up to 100 km²).
- Pick the layers: buildings, roads, bridges, terrain, contours, water and green areas, trees.
- Press Create model. In about a minute you get a 3D preview, a drawing and the satellite image.
- Keep Terrain and Contours on (switch off other layers if you only need topography) and download the format you need.
What you get
- Terrain as a mesh with the grid step matched to the source (down to about 4 m on lidar data).
- Contour lines as 3D polylines with an automatic interval (1, 2, 5, 10 m… depending on relief), index contours in the vector map.
- Terrain sections along any line with the Section tool (DXF, SVG, PNG).
Tips
- Where a national lidar model exists (much of Europe, the USA, Japan and others) the terrain is bare-earth, without buildings and trees.
- Elsewhere the global Copernicus DEM (30 m) is cleaned under buildings and forests to approximate the ground.
Questions
How accurate is the terrain?
It depends on the source shown under the model: lidar terrain models are accurate to decimetres; Copernicus DEM is a 30 m global model, fine for context but not for engineering.
Can I export only contours?
Yes — turn off buildings, roads and other layers; the DXF then contains just the terrain and contour lines.
Open urban:EXPORT — free No sign-up · 3 areas a day up to 5 km² free · up to 100 km²