A bird’s-eye view looks straight down at your property. Because the imagery is measured, plants and beds appear at their real size without the scale step.

• You need a street address, town and state.
• The window says: any US address; Connecticut has 3-inch state imagery; elsewhere USGS imagery (about 2 feet per pixel). The site owner can point the Designer at a different imagery service in Settings.
• If a visitor is not signed in, the number of aerial map tiles per visitor is limited (not verified how many).

1. Start a design and choose Bird’s-eye view (“Find your house on aerial imagery”).
2. Type the address in the box. Pick it from the autocomplete list if it appears, or tap Find.
3. A map opens. Drag it so your yard fills the screen. Zoom with a pinch, the mouse wheel, or the plus and minus buttons.
4. The note on screen says “What you see is what you’ll design on”.
5. Tap ✓ Use this view. The button changes to “Saving…” while the pictures load.
6. The Designer opens on the aerial image and switches to the Add tool, with a note that the bird’s-eye view is to scale.

• The Scale tab shows “Map scale” and a Pixels per foot slider. Only adjust it if something looks off.
• There is a Show a person for scale checkbox.
• The eye-level line and the scale chip do not apply, because there is no horizon.
• Measurements on an aerial are accurate. On photos they are estimates, marked with “≈”.
• Arrow buttons in the Move panel move items on the map instead of farther or closer.

• Aerial views are best for planning bed sizes, spacing, patios and walkways.
• Add a ground-level photo as a second view so you can see the same design from the street. See Add and manage views.
• Without a Google Maps key, address autocomplete uses OpenStreetMap. With a key it uses Google.

• “Could not find that address” or “There are no aerial photos for this address”: check spelling or take or upload a photo instead.
• “The aerial pictures didn’t finish loading — try again”: wait a moment and tap Use this view again.
• The image looks old or blurry: imagery is a public source and is only as recent and sharp as the provider makes it.

• Start a new design
• Set the scale with "Set it up for me"
• Explore your home in 3D and save angles