Online maps can be zoomed. Go to google maps, scroll the mouse and you switch between zoom levels without noticing it. A static map in 3ds Max needs to be regenerated when you want to have a different zoom level. This can be counter intuitive. Here are some guidelines.

Viewport texture resolution

Make sure textures in the viewport are displayed with a reasonable resolution. If you've downloaded an 8k satellite image and your viewport shows it as an 1k image you won't see the image in its best quality. 

Keep in mind that the viewport display resolution doesn't affect the quality of the image, only how it's displayed. If you want to see your satellite images in all their glory, you need to make a render.


Open the "Configure Viewports" menu

Set the Texture Maps resolution to 2k or 4k


Map zoom level

If you need more detail on your map, you can increase the zoomlevel. Keep in mind that going one zoomlevel up quadruples the number of images which have to be downloaded.


Zoomlevel=16


Zoomlevel=17


You can see the higher zoomlevel is a bit sharper. It also has additional content: the individual houses on the peninsula. Each map provider handles content on their zoomlevels differently per map style. A satellite image just becomes shaper. Vector styles like the one shown above might show or hide individual features on different zoomlevels.