Accessing MapStand datasets in Google Earth Pro using OGC Web Services (WMS only)
To access the MapStand's OGC Web Services for Hub customers we use basic Authentication or the API access token.
Below are the instructions for accessing these using Google Earth Pro.
- Open Google Earth Pro and select 'Add' and on the dropdown list select 'Image Overlay'
- Give the new image overlay a name i.e. MapStand WMS Connection
- Then click the 'Refresh' tab and then the 'WMS Parameters' button
- Here is where you want to add your URL for the WMS connection. the URL will vary by customer. For example, https://hub.mapstand.com/gs/ows?apikey=<your API token>. Click here to discover how to find out what your unique API access token is.
- Once a connection is made, it will look like the below with a list of data layers on the left-hand panel in 'Transparent Layers'
- Select the layer(s) you want and click Add → to move them into Selected Layers. Then click OK.
- Back in the New Image Overlay window, click Apply (so you can preview) and then OK. The overlay shows in your Places panel and should render on the globe.
- You cannot click the WMS-rendered overlay itself to get an attribute pop-up.
Google Earth only sees the WMS as a static image draped on the globe. There’s no vector geometry or attribute table behind it — so no “Identify” tool like you’d find in QGIS or ArcGIS. To get access to this data, you can download the data in the HUB as a KML format and add this to Temporary Places into Google Earth Pro.