Google Earth - And Autocad

And somewhere in the cloud, AutoCAD and Google Earth shook hands over a job neither could have done alone.

Mira wanted to see it rise again.

The next morning, she sent the KMZ file to the historical society. She didn't write a long report. She just wrote: "Go to the off-ramp at exit 47. Open this in Google Earth on your phone. Stand in the real place and look at your screen." google earth and autocad

She worked until 2 a.m., the glow of her monitor the only light in the room. And then she did something she rarely did. She exported the AutoCAD model to SketchUp, then imported it into Google Earth as a .

By day, she worked for a small preservation trust. By night, she hunted for the almost-gone . And somewhere in the cloud, AutoCAD and Google

For years, Mira had been an archaeologist of the invisible. Her specialty wasn't digging with a trowel, but stitching together the ghost layers of a city using two very different pieces of software: Google Earth and AutoCAD.

Her current obsession was the old Barlow textile mill, which had been demolished in 1989 to make way for a highway interchange. All that remained was a forgotten retaining wall, half-swallowed by kudzu, and a single black-and-white photograph from the local historical society. The photo showed a three-story sawtooth roof, a water tower shaped like a mushroom, and a loading dock where children once stole scraps of velvet. She didn't write a long report

Mira spun the view. She tilted the angle so she was looking south toward the sawtooth roof. She zoomed down to ground level, where the loading dock would have been. In her mind, she heard the rattle of looms, the hiss of steam, the shouts of children running for scraps.