New Modeling Algorithms Bring More Detail to Google Earth's 3-D World 64
An anonymous reader writes "Google Earth has featured (some) textured 3D buildings and 3D terrain since 2006. New image-based modeling algorithms that process 45-degree Aerial Images automatically, however, will allow Google Earth to display entire 3D cities with fully texture-mapped, accurately modeled 3 dimensional buildings, roads, trees and landscaping/terrain. This YouTube video released by Google shows how effective the technique is at capturing urban areas in 3D. The resulting 3D cities look almost like a high-altitude view of a fully modeled 3D city in games like Grand Theft Auto."
Integrate into a map? (Score:2)
It would be nice if this got merged with Street View and Google Maps.
Re:Integrate into a map? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google panicing about apple? (Score:3)
C3 already was doing this a couple years ago. Apple bought C3, and we've heard nothing more. But there is a rumor Apple is going to debut the 3D maps next week on iphones. Google annoiuncing progress on their developments in this area sounds like a pre-emptive publicity strike from google to blunt the Apple first.
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Simulator (Score:1)
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Not really.
But GTA has stealing cars and killing people in it, I guess that would be more fun in real life.
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You know someone will use this to create a GTA rip-off based on real cities, and then someone else will blame it for the next random murder spree.
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Fuel has become far too expensive for the simple pleasure drive.
Sketchup supplanted (Score:5, Interesting)
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Of course there are plenty of 3D CAD programs available, but for those of us who aren't professional draughtsmen, few approach the ease-of-use that Sketchup has.
I've yet to find any vaguely competent free 3D CAD software for Linux...
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FreeCAD isn't that bad. It's a pain in the ass to use, but it's a free software 3D CAD program that mostly works.
Beat me to it. It's based on OpenCascade, a mature BREP library with impressive capabilities. Their plan is apparently to get the back end working well first, then pretty up the interface.
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It depends on what you mean by CAD and competent (a word I'd normally reserve for people not software).
If by CAD you mean designs good enough for a "maker" [wikipedia.org] project, then Blender should be enough. There's also FreeCAD [wikipedia.org]. However if you're looking for something you can use as the plan for a skyscraper then, no, not even SketchUp will do. Not even AutoCAD and other expensive industrial-strength software will do if you're not a professiona
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Haha if you think blender can do CAD, you've obviously never used real CAD software. I wish it weren't the case, but currently nothing (including FreeCAD) comes even close to Solidworks. Trust me, I have used all of the following programs:
* FreeCAD - Yeah, not useful.
* HeeksCAD - Sadly also not useful.
* Solidworks - Amazingly amazing. But Windows only, and there is no way to get it for a sane amount of money other than piracy.
* Pro/Engineer - Very good, but a shit interface (Motif!). It used to have Linux s
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You've obviously cherry-picked my comment, especially the part about "depends on what you mean by CAD" (Computer Assisted Design). Blender is "good enough" to prototype a design you wouldn't stake your life and probably your salary on, i.e. DIY stuff (which is what I said). Of course for serious design where you can get sued for failure, Blender is like a kitchen knife to a surgeon.
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Sketchup didn't have ads. (Score:3)
Sketchup didn't fit Google's business model. No ads. No user tracking.
Nice (Score:3)
Maybe I'll care once they start using imagery under ten years old over my city. It'd be nice if the buildings that have been torn down and replaced in the meantime were photographed before the new buildings are torn down too.
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No, they didn't. Bing has aerial photography, but that's not what this is about. This is about aerial photography processed into a 3D world.
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for selected citys, Bing hast 3d textured models for a long time. Using the same tech, 45 degree aerial photography using airplane mounted hires cams.
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i mean, they used the aerial photography to model the terrain and texture them.
somehow i cannot find the setting anymore for reference....
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http://www.bing.com/maps/Help/VE3DInstall/ [bing.com]
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But Microsoft’s Bing uses Google search results—and denies it [blogspot.co.uk].
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I'm no fan of Microsoft, but that accusation is weak. It tails off at the end with a lack of explanation about how Microsoft are doing it, even though they managed to engineer exactly the circumstances required... installing certain software on engineers laptops and sending them out to do certain searches repeatedly.
The truth is that Microsoft's toolbar is spyware, installed with permission. It adds data to Bing by analysing ever page the user visits, and ranking the most important links for the text by wha
Just like Nokia? (Score:4, Informative)
So, just like Nokia's 3D maps [nokia.com]? Or are Nokia's maps hand modelled?
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Nokia's maps are by C3 - a company that's been acquired by Nokia http://mynokiablog.com/2011/10/31/now-apple-owns-c3-the-folks-behind-nokia-maps-3d-what-happens-now/
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Nokia's maps are by C3 - a company that's been acquired by Nokia http://mynokiablog.com/2011/10/31/now-apple-owns-c3-the-folks-behind-nokia-maps-3d-what-happens-now/ [mynokiablog.com]
And of course you meant to say that C3 has been acquired by Apple [mynokiablog.com], not Nokia.
Imagine what the military have! (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is the consumer grade version, imagine what the military have, and must have had for years.
This is impressive technology, even if it has been done before!
That's nothing. (Score:1)
I'm sure the Aliens have even better maps of our world. Present, AND way in the past.
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They to, but if you really worked for the government you would know this. But then again, if you did work for them and leaked how far advanced we really are, you wouldn't be working for them much longer.
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I remember doing my military service in the Swedish army staff school (Battalion level and higher) in Enköping in 1989/90. There were a voluntary project involving manually digitizing maps using a CAD tablet with a 16 button rat. The software ran on a Unix workstation and it was quite buggy. So I asked the officer in charge, a major, why they didn't use the raw data from the National Land Survey of Sweden (Lantmäteriet) since I were pretty sure the data were already vectorized and layered. He did
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The thing is, it's realllly expensive to have something like this for a relatively small number of people to use. And I'm pretty sure it's more dependent on direct elevation sensing (e.
You don't have to imagine, wait for Monday (Score:2)
If this is the consumer grade version, imagine what the military have,
Apple last year bought C3 Technologies [youtube.com], which was a spinoff of the Sweedish company Saab, which was used for military aircraft.
All of the videos you can find on the web are from around a year ago. Imagine what might come out of marrying the military technology with some manipulation enhancements from Apple...
The thing is I'm not sure that technology is that much better than what Google has, as far as rendering and storing the world... th
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The military has a simpler system: 1) bomb it 'till it's flat, 2) don't bother to take pictures.
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Because government is always ahead of private industry in creating cutting edge software!
Sarcasm.
Many people seem to thing government secret technology is like that used in the movie "Enemy of the State".
I really doubt it. There might be a few things technology wise that they might be ahead of the curve, likely military, and likely so expensive it wasn't even worth considering, so unless you are a wealthy nation not worth implementing anyway (and obsolete in a year or two anyway).
I think the rate technology
I fail to see how this helping to find something (Score:2)
Again commercial map vendors are battling with bling and shiny, not actually hiqh quality data. I guess it is path of less resistance (and marketing dep are happy).
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I gotta admit, this is one thing I wonder about.
Don't get me wrong--I've used Google Earth and entered bike rides that I've gone on. It was pretty cool to do the fly-along view and I can see where this would be really fun for the first few times.
The problem is that if I'm actually trying to navigate around a city, there will be two problems. Either the camera will be positioned so that I can't see where I'm supposed to turn because some building is in the way, or the camera is going to be sweeping around
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API Support? (Score:1)
Only Terrorists need this detail (Score:2)
This is a trap. View this level of detail, get put on a watched list.
Does anyone actually use this shit? (Score:2)
Does anyone actually use this shit? I didn't use 3D maps before, and I don't plan on starting. I just don't see the value I guess, aside from the novelty factor.
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Whee..! Better internet tourism.. (Score:1)