Using Google Maps with ArcMap 10

[DanielLunsford1]

I am a college student using the evaluation version of ArcMap 10 for a project.

I would like to pull in Google Maps imagery into my ArcMap 10 maps. I understand that this can be done, but my question is: how? I'm a beginning ArcMap user and a lot of the Help items I've read through seem to be dead end: that is, I follow the directions on how to add tools, but the tool I am told to add isn't where the Help article says it should be... is it because I have an evaluation copy?

Can anyone direct me to a newbie-friendly, step-by-step instructions on how to do this? Or, can anyone point me toward a free source of detailed aerial maps that ArcMap can work with directly? I've found some USGS maps but they are all far too large scale to do me any good- I need to see individual buildings in some detail, well enough to get a decent measure of their footprint in square feet.

[MargaretGooding]

If you want to use Google Earth Imagery in ArcMap, you need to make sure you have your vertical exaggeration set to as close to zero as possible. Google Earth Pro is now free, so you can save imagery at the highest resolution. Zoom in to your area of interest, save as image. Bring the image into ArcMap and georeference it. If you have a license for Bing Aerials, then you can use the auto registration tool (make sure you do not have World Imagery in your map document or it will crash) to georeference your aerial. If you are zoomed in for many areas, the Google Imagery will have better resolution than the same zoom level in Bing (or World Imagery). Since we often use aerial imagery to digitize data from, it is important for us to have the best resolution we can get. I often will download several Google Earth images and mosaic them together using the auto register tool so I get better resolution for a larger area.

[SamanthaHussey]

That's exactly what I do - it works but I wish Google Earth would have a WMS or REST service to accommodate 10.1 users. I hear that 10.3's ESRI base maps are Google now. Wish I could upgrade would save me loads of time.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Samantha Hussey​,

ESRI's basemaps are not Google imagery in 10.3 in my area (Georgia). That would be great though!!!  Google Imagery is so much more up to date in our area. Now that ESRI and Google are becoming friendlier (i.e. Google & Esri ) this would be nice to see... Perhaps it could be sometime in the future?

By the way I tried this addin toolbar in 10.3 - http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=7cca7c34d6ac4ca4a61387dcf4f14e57

   It did not work.  For any of the web imagery providers.  Anyone else try it?

[MargaretGooding]

I have 10.3.1 and Google Earth is definitely not part of the imagery. I talked to an ESRI guy about that and he said he has been in discussions with Google for 2 years without much success. They are closer, but not there yet. I have not tried the add-in tool. It states you have to be in data view for it to work. That won’t work for me. I will continue to georeference exported Google Earth imagery (I do have a pro license). No idea what an API license is. Or what API is.

Margaret Gooding, GIS/Graphics Dept. Head | Tel (951) 781-9310, ext. 279 | fax (951) 781-4277

LSA ASSOCIATES, INC. | 1500 Iowa Avenue | Suite 200 | Riverside, CA 92507

margaret.gooding@lsa-assoc.com <mailto:margaret.gooding@lsa-assoc.com> | Website <http://www.lsa-assoc.com/> | Map <https://goo.gl/maps/79YnG>

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[PhilipShabanov1]

HDGooglebasemaps works, and its cheap.  www.hdgooglebasemaps.com