Using Google Earth Images in QGIS

foreign you're probably familiar with Google Earth an amazing tool which uses very high quality imagery of the entire world this imagery has a much higher resolution than you can get from most other satellite images and it's all free there are several ways to use this imagery in a map project in this video I'll cover the most useful ones if you want to Google satellite image by itself and don't need to add any additional data you can download the image directly from Google Earth this will give you a large image here are the steps for that go to Google Earth and zoom into the area you need uncheck all of the boxes in the layers panel unless you want any of them to be included in the image press the r key to make sure the image is looking straight down click the save image icon at the top of the window three buttons will appear click on the map options one and uncheck all of the boxes click on the resolution button and select maximum then click save image it will take a few seconds and the image will be saved to your computer this image will be 113 inches wide at 72 pixels per inch if you need it to be 300 PPI for printing you can trade size for resolution to do this open the image in Photoshop and go to image image size uncheck the resample box and change the resolution to 300 PPI this reduces the width from 113 inches to about 27 inches check the resample box now and reduce the width or height to the final size you need this brings down the file size substantially if you want to make any changes to the image in Photoshop such as contrast color whatever do that now save the file in whatever format you want this is a very simple way to get high quality images but you can't use them in qgis without some extra steps if you want to add qgis data to a Google Earth image there are several options bring your data into qgis and set the CRS to Google Maps Global Mercator epsg 900913 this is the CRS Google Earth images use export the qgis file as an SVG and combine the image and data in illustrator load the image into qgis and manually geo-reference it An Inconvenient process or use a base map plugin to load the Google Earth image directly into qgis this image will be automatically geo-referenced and aligned perfectly with your data at any CRS you want I'm not going to explain the first two methods because the third option is by far the easiest and most useful I can't think of any reason to use either of the first two methods note there are several videos on YouTube about geo-referencing Google Earth images using KML files but many of these involve adding Place marks or paths in Google Earth and then using these to place ground control points in qgis while this method works it's no easier than using qgis to geo-reference the image and it's completely unnecessary for most purposes the easiest way to add Google Earth imagery in qgis is to use a base map base maps are pre-made maps of the world that show different types of data from satellite imagery to streets and buildings these have many uses in qgis I use a base map when downloading openstreetmap data it lets me limit the download files to the area shown on the base map you can also use base Maps as a bottom layer such as the satellite image and add Vector data over it to create a composite map there are two main ways to get these use the XYZ tiles function in the browser window or use a base map plugin here's the really great thing about base maps you can also use one to easily generate a high resolution geotiff I'll get to that in a minute here's a quick summary of the options XYZ tiles the XYZ tiles option is built into qgis it includes an osm base map by default but you can add others you'll find the control for this toward the bottom of the browser panel to add a base map right click on XYZ tiles and select new connection a window will open name the connection then do a search for map tile connections and you'll see a bunch of them for different services here's the one for Google satellite find a connection you want and paste the code into the URL field the new base map will be added to the XYZ tiles list to use it just drag it onto the map Canvas OR the layers panel and the map will appear zoom into your area of Interest this works okay but there are better and easier options for base Maps this method requires finding the correct URLs and adding them manually these URLs seem to change periodically making this process a little more difficult there are several plugins that don't require any setup here's an overview quick map Services plugin this plugin lets you quickly add an osm base map to a qgis project you can add other maps to this by using the search qms function this can include Ortho photo images topographic maps and other interesting data because of the range of data available it's worth having this plug-in even though it's not my primary source for base Maps HMC GIS plugin this plugin gives you quick access to a large selection of Base Maps it also includes some other useful options including links to open data sets for U.S states and world countries this is the best choice for most users map tile or Plugin this plugin is part of a family of mapping products many are geared toward creating online Maps it gives you a range of Base maps and they're different in one big way most export as Vector images this lets you quickly create a good looking map by adding your data changing the CRS if needed and exporting the map to illustrator here's the basic base map layer with some Road shape files added to it unfortunately there's no option to export the base map without labels but these can be removed in illustrator you can also create custom maps directly on the website these maps are free for non-commercial use but you'll need to pay for commercial uses since this is a specialty product I'm not including it in the following discussion if you want to use Google Earth images directly within a qgis project you can still get a high resolution image and you don't have to geo-reference the image first here are the steps in qgis add the base map you want such as Google satellite and zoom into the area you want add your GIS data if you want to change the CRS do that now I've changed the CRS on this file to NAD 83 North Carolina when you're ready to export the map go to Project new print layout to open a print layout window click the add map button and draw a box to add the image on the right side click on the layout tab and scroll down to export settings set the export resolution to whatever you want for the image go to layout export as SVG name the file and click save in the SVG export options window check the boxes under export options and click save when you add a base map to a project and Export it as an SVG in this way the base map will be exported as an image that is not geo-referenced on its own this is usually not a problem while working in qgis you can change the CRS as needed and the base map will adjust accordingly this is usually the best way to work with Google Earth images it's quick and easy and you can export the image at a high resolution if you want Google Earth images that are geo-referenced maybe so you can use them later there's a really easy way to do this these steps work with both the XYZ tiles and HCM GIS plugin and probably with any base map system follow these steps in qgis add the base map you want such as Google satellite and zoom into the area you want adding a regular Google Maps layer will help you find the area you want just delete this layer once you've got your area on the map canvas you can change the CRS now if you want but it's not necessary go to Project new print layout to open a print layout window click the add map button and draw a box to add the image go to layout export as image name the file and choose Tiff from the format menu that's a very important step the image export window will appear set the desired resolution and check the generate World file box then click save your image is now a geo-referenced geotiff complete with a twf file here I've loaded it into qgis and added some Road shape files now I'll change the CRS to wgs 84. and everything is perfect a final note there can be visual differences between imagery on Google Earth and the base Maps the resolution will be the same but the colors may vary here's an example of the same area from a direct Google Earth image and a base map image if you really need the colors of the direct image you can download it from Google Earth at manually geo-reference it or generate the image from a base map and adjust the colors in Photoshop see my editing geotifs in Photoshop video for more information check out my designer's guide to creating great maps at the mapguy.net guide and download two free chapters that's it for now see you next time

Channel: Jess Zimmerman

Views: 18,563

Keywords:

Id: DvuTUtmpPU4

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 20 2023