Here's a way to use the dimensional tool to scale maps.

This is the only window that opens to write a new post, however I'll use it until that is corrected.

Here's a way to use the Smart Draw dimensional tool with the Google map imports. This is important for all kinds of land-use occupations, ranging from forest rangers and farmers to builders and planners.

The maximum-resolution Google map is seventy-five feet to an inch. For the quick of mind, that should be enough to devise a number of ways to scale larger maps, from making checkerboard bars, and stretching them, to simply using the image dimension control in Photoshop to stretch the image proportionately through checking the correct boxes.

However, here's a step-by-step write-up that may prove useful to some:

1. Import a “highest-resolution” or maximum resolution (max-res) satellite-road map from any part of your work area. However, it should contain distinguishable landscape features. This system will not work in a desert landscape, for example. For that, you must use Photoshop to scale the map down from the 75' =1". The scale of the imported map is a standard 75’=’s1”. After saving as a gif or jpeg, set it as background.
2. Make a scaling bar in the checkerboard style, using shapes, fill and group tools, as well as the ruler set at 75 feet equals one inch. It must be long enough to lie between recognizable points (landscape features) when applied in the next step (Step 3) to your lower-resolution work area. To obtain this result, you may have to import several contiguous max-res squares, and after stitching them, choose points several hundred feet apart. Check the scaling bar using the ruler tool. It should come out to 75’feet of max-res map equals 1 inch on the scaler as measured by the cursor and ruler, but this can only be perfectly checked against the dimensions of a known structure appearing in the max-res satellite map.
3. Now, import and save the larger, work-area version of the Google map you will be using. Using the Selecting Arrow and the Dimensions tool, shrink the scaling bar you have created to where it lies with endpoints touching the two recognizable landscape features you have chosen.
4. Measure the bar using the ruler, to determine the first factor of you shrinkage constant or S. The proportional formula you will be using to find the factor by which you multiply all dimensioning done on the larger, work area map is:

         .

Where your bar at 75feet equals 1inch, and your new bar on low-res work map is ¼ inch long, then it might be written (2)75 over ¼=X, or 2 times 75 divided by .25=X;

or the product of 2 and 75 divided by ¼ equals X. Any way you write it, the equation is a strict proportion, and is solved by multiplying the diagonally set known factors together, and then dividing the result by the third known factor. There is no real sense in making the computations as described, however the math always works, and always has through the laws of proportions.

In this case “X,” or the scaling factor = 6, and you may, using the scaling tool menu in SmartDraw, change the number of feet per inch to 6X75 or 450 from either the default, which is 4, or 75 if you are still using the same window or instance, and have not reset it to the highest-res Google map standard.