Huge Google Maps

Program to make huge, detailed screenshots of Google Maps.

Developed as a one-off script to make a 4-foot square wall map of Philadelphia (25000 x 25000 pixels). Will require minor tweaking to work on other machines or zoom levels.

Please be respectful of the Google Maps Terms of Service, remember to attribute properly, and do not use this program for commercial purposes.

Requirements / Dependencies

• Python 3.5
• Selenium 3.0.2 (Browser automation to display the Google maps)
• PyScreenshot 0.4.2 (To capture an area of each map)
• Nose 1.3.7 (To run and time tests / map creation)
• Mozilla Gecko driver -- mv geckodriver /usr/bin
• Set computer screen to not turn off / sleep while program is running

On Ubuntu:

sudo python3 -m pip install selenium
sudo python3 -m pip install pyscreenshot
sudo python3 -m pip install nose
sudo apt-get install python3-tk

Using the program

Import the hugegmaps script and call the create_map function. You can reference the tests.py file for examples of the below content.

If an outfile parameter is passed to the function, then the finished map will be saved to that location. Otherwise, the file will be saved to the current working directory with the filename testimg-<timestamp>.png.

Start by going to Google Maps, and find the top-left coordinate you want to use for the final map. At the moment, the program always runs at a zoom level of 18z. I anchored my test runs around the Philly Art Museum, so my coordinates were (39.9644273, -75.1801129).

Run a quick test of the program to create an image from a single screenshot.

from hugegmaps import create_map
create_map(
    lat_start=39.9644273,
    long_start=-75.1801129,
    number_rows=1,
    number_cols=1,
    outfile='test_calibration.png',
)

Open the program in an image viewer of your choice. Using the Ubuntu default viewer:

eog huge_gmap_calibration.png

Based on the results of the program run with 0 for all offset_* values, make an estimate for what ratio should be trimmed from each side so that only the pure map area is seen. On my laptop, a single display with left-side taskbar, these values were:

offset_left=0,  # My value: 0.05
offset_top=0,  # My value: 0.17
offset_right=0,  # My value: 0.03
offset_bottom=0,  # My value: 0.09

Once you adjust the offsets to eliminate unwanted elements, delete the test screenshot, and run the program again. This will take a few runs with trial-and-error to get right.

When you're happy with the single screenshot and have the offsets configured, run the program on a small 3x3 grid to ensure that the images get stitched together seamlessly. You'll want to run the program at a scale of about 0.2, or else the resulting image can be too large to open in normal image viewers.

At this point, you also want to increase the sleep_time to make sure that all asynchronous image loading functions complete before you take your screenshot. If this is set too low, some screenshots may appear with less content and lower resolution than others in the final image.

create_map(
    lat_start=39.9644273,
    long_start=-75.1801129,
    number_rows=3,
    number_cols=3,
    scale=0.2,
    sleep_time=3,
    offset_left=0.05,
    offset_top=0.17,
    offset_right=0.03,
    offset_bottom=0.09,
    outfile='huge_gmap_small_area.png',
)

Look at the resulting image to ensure the offsets are correct, and make sure the seams of the screenshots (at 1/3 and 2/3 of the final image's height and width) line up. If these do not line up perfectly, you might need to make small adjustments to the 'magic numbers' in the calc_latitude_shift and calc_longitude_shift functions.

Once you are happy with the test of a 3x3 grid of images, estimate the total number of rows and columns that your desired area will require, and run the program at low resolution and no sleep time to confirm those numbers.

After you confirm your offsets and rows/columns at low resolution, run the program with a scale=1 and sleep_time=3 (or more) to create your print-ready huge Google Map.

Contributing

If you have any suggestions for improvement, please update this code in the simplest way that could possibly work, and submit a pull request. Or, just open an Issue on GitHub.

Wishlist / TODO

• Remove pyscreenshot dependency by hand-rolling a crop_image_by_offsets function using PIL. Selenium can take full-screen screenshots already.
• Allow for adjustable zoom levels. Will require adjusting the formula and magic numbers for the lat and long shift calculations.
• Allow the program to work with Google Earth, not just Google Maps.