Ripping and Georectifying Google Earth Images into ArcGIS

This article, of course, is for entertainment purposes only - Google Earth data is not to be used for any commercial purposes. I will try to describe how to move images from Google Earth to ArcGIS as seamlessly as possible. Google earth is great, but you cant perform any real or lasting analysis with it. So, how does an imagery enthusiast get the images from GE to Arc?

Methodology

1. Place 3 or more placemarks at the edge of the portion of the Google Earth image you wish to move to ArcGIS


2. Save each of them in Google Earth (they can be found listed in the My Places folder).


3. Import the points to ArcGIS with ET Geowizards

You can find a more detailed article about importing and exporting to/from Google EArth to ArcGIS

here : exporting from GE
and
here : importing GE points into ArcGIS 9.2

One you have added each of your points as a point feature in ArcGIS, you now need to import the Google Earth Image itself. The only way to do this - that I currently know of - is the following:

- Turn off all layers in Google EArth so you just see the satellite image/air photo
- press alt+print screen to dump your screen's image to the clipboard
- paste the image into a paint/image program
-save the image as an ESRI compatible format (be sure to leave the Google Earth Copyright information on the image as well as the company who provided the data to Google).
- Add the image into ArcMAP

Once you have the image in ArcMAP, it does not have any coordinates. In this situation you need to georectify it to fit the 3+ points you recorded earlier in GE. If you do not know how to georectify an image, be sure to follow my guide at:

Google Earth to ArcGIS: Exporting KMZ, KML from GE successfully

This ties in with an earlier post of mine. I thought that it didn't give enough details about how to export each of the different types of digitized areas you can create in Google Earth.

The intention, for me, to export this data, is to get it into ArcGIS. If you are looking for methodology for moving Google Earth data to ArcGIS, please read my other post about it.

Saving Google Earth Data as KML or KMZ


Saving and individual point is very straightforward. Right click on the point, click save as, then choose where you would like to save the KMZ file.

To save a polygon or a line - go to the Places pane, expand My Places..., then right click on the feature you wish to save, click save as... and you're done.

If you wish to save multiple features into one KML data set (so you can import them into ArcGIS as one layer), there is currently no methodology for this.

Google Earth to ArcGIS: Importing Google Earth into ArcGIS 9.2

This is the first of a series of articles I will be publishing on data interoperability between Google Earth and ArcGIS 9.2 (9.1 and possibly earlier as well)

Bringing Stuff from Google Earth to ArcGIS...

If you have made a placemark or a polygon, or a polyline in Google Earth, it is easy to import them into ArcGIS. All you need to do to bring points/lines/polygons from GE to ArcMap is to do the following:

-Create feature in Google EArth
-Right click on it
-Click Save as....
-Save the KMZ/KML file
-Download ET geowizards (if you haven't already, its an amazing ArcGIS toolset)
-on the in/out tab in ET, select import from Google Earth
-select the parameters

There, you have successfully brought google earth data into ArcView!