{"id":2751,"date":"2017-03-29T13:12:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T11:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/?p=2751"},"modified":"2025-05-15T19:51:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T17:51:48","slug":"creating-large-scale-high-resolution-maps-from-various-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/?p=2751","title":{"rendered":"Creating large-scale high-resolution Maps from various Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows services such as Google Earth<\/a> or Microsoft Maps<\/a>. They are great for exploring but they are not so great when it comes to creating large-scale high-resolution images, e.g. for a wall poster or alike. Also, they have their shortcomings when it is about comparing maps or images from different sources to “pick the best”.<\/p>\n

So I went out searching… and here is a little process to share. The task is: to create a single-image map of Mallorca with a high-level map resolution. So let’s see…<\/p>\n

The software I am using for this is called SAS.Planet – and it seems to be a Russian-built piece of software (so my first installation came up all Cyrillic…). I ended up downloading a copy from “somewhere” and then used the internal Help -> Check for Updates<\/em> feature to grab the latest release.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So this is all of Mallorca (using a Google Maps layer)\u00a0but not the level of detail I want… which is more like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So in general, I have a choice of seeing “all of it at lower level” or “seeing more detail but lesser area”. Let’s change that: zoom back out until you see the whole of the island. Then use the Rectangular Selection tool to draw a map around it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A window will open that allows for a couple of options. In general, I have had the best experience with downloading the required tiles first, then stitching them together. So on the Download tab, all I do is to download all tiles of Zoom Level 15 and click Start.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you want to monitor the download process, you may switch on Tile Shading using View – Cached Tiles Maps<\/em> and select the level you are downloading – z15.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This will display each tile downloaded for that Zoom Level to appear with a gray shading. In addition, you can monitor the progress in the Download Window. Now, you need some patience and wait…some tile servers are faster, some are slower.<\/p>\n

When all tiles have been downloaded, go back to your current selection via Operations -> Selection Manager -> Last Selection<\/em> and switch to the Stitch<\/em> tab.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Enter a file name and location in Save to and select the appropriate Zoom Level (15 in our example). Then click Start.<\/p>\n

The image that is now created is roughly 10 MB in size – the dimensions are 15000 x 11000 px – so pretty large.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, one cannot see much at this magnification but zooming in anywhere onto this picture shows the true level of detail:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another nice feature: if I do not like the map that has been produced, SAS.Planet allows me to switch to a different tile server but maintain the current selections. So let’s use Google’s Landscape Tiles instead to see if we can get a better result on the mountain region of the island.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You can see: the selection box is still present so I go back to the Selection Manager and download the tiles for Level 15 of Google’s Landscape Layer – same procedure as above.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I go back to create the stitched image from the downloaded tiles, the result again is a file of 19 MB, same dimensions as the first one.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The level of detail, again, will only reveal itself when zooming in but the overall representation is more what I think I would like to have on the wall… the hills are showing as a well defined relief…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are plenty of other layers available in SAS.Planet – using the OpenTopo Tile Server provides yet a different view for the map:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And of course – if I do not like a map-type of poster on my wall, I can always switch to the various satellite image providers – mainly Google Earth and Microsoft Bing. Here is a comparison between the image quality of the two – Microsoft on the left, Google on the right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It comes down to a matter of taste at this level – on a higher level of detail, the Microsoft tiles are more crisp but the Google tiles are more up-to-date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows services such as Google Earth or Microsoft Maps. They are great for exploring but they are not so great when it comes to creating large-scale high-resolution images, e.g. for a wall poster or alike. Also, they have their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1azp4-In","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2027-06-24 14:47:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2751"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2772,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions\/2772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andreaszapf.de\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}