[GRASS-user] Digitizing from or converting Google Earth maps

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2019, Daniel Victoria wrote:

> Not sure if r.in.gdal or r.in.wms can load Google Earth tiles.

Daniel,

Both are worth a try.

> QGIS has a nice way of loading external tiles and WMS servers as a
> background image. You could than digitize on top of that. But since Google
> changed their MAPs API, I'm not sure if QGIS is loading Google Earth
> Images straight out of the box. It's been a while since I've used this
> feature.

Also something for me to consider.

> Also, I'm not sure what to make of this part of the Google Maps Platform
> terms of service, in the section about "restrictions against misusing"

> (a)  No Scraping.  Customer will not extract, export, scrape, or cache
> Google Maps Content for use outside the Services. For example, Customer
> will not:(i) pre-fetch, index, store, reshare, or rehost Google Maps
> Content outside the services; (ii) bulk download geocodes; (iii) copy
> business names, addresses, or user reviews; or (iv) use Google Maps Content
> with text-to-speech services. Caching is permitted for certain Services as
> described in the Maps Service Specific Terms.
>
> (b) No Creating Content From Google Maps Content. Customer will not create
> content based on Google Maps Content, including tracing, digitizing, or
> creating other datasets based on Google Maps Content

I read the above as prohibiting re-using GE maps in web applications or for
profit as products, but not prohibiting using the tiles as background for
maps produced by a GIS.

The other part of my question, which was not clearly stated, is how to use
v.edit or the GUI digitizing tool to closely follow an edge in a background
map. Perhaps the way to do this is to zoom in on a small section, digitize a
series of short arcs, save the work and exit digitizing, then pan the
working widow and repeat the above. I've not been able to digitize a project
area, for example, while viewing the entire area.

Thanks for your reply,

Rich