using Google Earth to locate a map for use in mscape

A run through of how I did it today; so I can remember it for another time….

Grab a map

In this case a campus map in the form of a .pdf

This will then need converting into a file format that Google Earth can accept (.jpg, .tiff, .png, .gif etc). Whilst I was in Photoshop I also rotated the image so that North was orientated towards the top:

campus map

Locate it

Open up Google Earth (available for free from here: http://earth.google.com/) and navigate to the area your map corresponds to.

view of campus in Google Earth

Double-check your settings for latitude and longitude values are set to decimal degrees. (Tools > options…. )

decimal degrees

Overlay your image. (Add > Image Overlay) You’ll also need to reduce the opacity so you can make out landmarks from the photo below the image.

image overlay

You can then position your map in the correct place. (More information about image overlays and resizing/moving/rotating are available on this Google help page.)

Once you have positioned your map you need to get the longitude and latitude values for at least three of the map’s corners (this is why it helps not to be using a map with a transparent background!).

Set a placemark at the map corners. You may find this easier if you first change the marker to a cross-hair rather than a pin.

marking the map corners

Right click (or equivalent on your operating system) on either the pin on the map or the pin name in the places side-panel to get to the properties window.

latitude and longitude

You can either repeat this for each of your corner pins and write down the latitude and longitude values given, or you can leave this window open and copy and paste the values over in just a minute…

Import into mscape

Open up your mscape file (or start a new one if you need to) and then click on the import map button at the top.
Create New Map > next > Type them in by hand > next > browse to your file > next > select lat/long and make sure you have WGS_84 as the datum type.

enter coordinates

In the following window you can then enter the values you got from Google Earth.

Save you map as a .maplib file and then import it to your project.

Testing it out

Next, if you follow these instructions for how to set your mscape to log your GPS trace, you can then check your map positioning (and the GPS accuracy) to check things are as they should be.

GPS trace

…then you’ve just got to make the rest of your mscape…