Whether you call it soccer, like us, or football, like the rest of the world, we have your virtual ticket to South Africa right here. Google Earth is proud to feature 3D models of all ten stadiums and the nine cities of host nation South Africa.
To check it out for yourself, download this 3D tour to explore the stadiums in Google Earth, or check it out using the new Earth view in Google Maps. Fly into Green Point Stadium for a seat looking out at Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain. From there you may want to head over to the dramatic arch that suspends Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium. The distinctive multi-hued orange shell of Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg is a must see. It’s here where South Africa kicks off against Mexico in the first game on June 11, and where the final takes place exactly a month later.
See what’s in store for you to explore in Google Earth:
South Africa offers much more than soccer stadiums of course, which is why we’ve also modeled thousands of buildings around the country. These 3D cities can help you get a feel for why South Africa receiving the world’s attention. And if you’re lucky enough to be there, you might like to see how close the stadium is to your hotel.
Finally, since several of the stadiums are either newly constructed or heavily remodeled, you can use the Historical Imagery feature in Google Earth to see the transformation over the years. Open up Google Earth, turn on the Historical Imagery layer by clicking on the clock button at the top, and slide the bar to travel through time.
We realize that the United States winning the Cup is a long-shot, but the 3D team here in Boulder, Colorado will be cheering for team USA anyway!
Explore the South African stadiums in 3D
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 3:00 AM
Author badges in the 3D Warehouse
Friday, May 28, 2010 9:45 AM
We’re excited to introduce author badges in the Google 3D Warehouse. Badges are our way of recognizing your modeling accomplishments and helping to establish your reputation in the 3D Warehouse community.
There are badges for:
- uploading a SketchUp model
- creating a Building Maker model
- recognizing the number of buildings you’ve had accepted into the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth
As you can see, I’ve been busy working on badges and not models, so perhaps you’d like to see badges for more prolific geo-modelers? Check out a couple of our featured modelers: Tobias Merk and ftang. A complete explanation of the badges can be found in this help center article.
Ready to see what badges you already have? Sign into the 3D Warehouse and take a look. Your badges will be visible right on the front page. You can also click on My Warehouse > My Models to see your badges. Want to see what badges other users have? Simply click on their user name to get to their profile page. Competition among modelers just became a lot more fun. Stay tuned for more badges!
Permalink | Links to this post |Use your own photos in Building Maker
Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:00 PM
Previously, Google Building Maker restricted you to using only our aerial images for your models. Today, we are happy to announce a new feature that allows you to upload your own photos for building creation - resulting in higher-detailed and more realistic building facades! The following images demonstrate how this new feature improves your building's appearance:
Watch this video to learn how to use this feature:
A new "Add your own photos" link will appear below the left image list after you have constrained three points of a block in at least two aerial images. Click on that link to upload your photos to a Picasa album, choose the photos for modeling, and specify the direction you were aiming when you took the photos. The new photos will appear in the image list.
Select one of these photos and adjust the block to fit. You must first adjust the block to fit (having added 7 points) before the Building Maker tools will be enabled. For further information refer to our user guide article.
There are also some example photos here for your experimentation. We hope you will have fun with this new addition!
Benvenuti a Venezia
11:43 AM
Venice, Italy in 3D is now live on Google Earth. You can take a virtual stroll starting at the train station (Venezia Santa Lucia) and traverse Ponte Scalzi to get to Campo Santa Margherita. You can check out the recently completed "fourth bridge" (Ponte della Costituzione) on the Grand Canal, without ever having to be in Venice. Or, you could watch the city from the vantage point of a bird perched atop St Mark's Campanile (Campanile di San Marco), walk around Palazzo Grassi or explore the Rialto Bridge (Ponte di Rialto).
All of these places and more can be yours to discover through Google Earth and Earth view in Google Maps. Watch the video below to fly through the city to experience the Venetian landmarks.
Whether you've never been to Venice, are a native curious to explore your city from a unique perspective or anything in between Venice in 3D offers an incredible opportunity to visit and explore "La Serenissima" in exciting new ways.
As a Google employee and a native of Italy I treasure the opportunity to virtually rekindle my memory of particular locations in Italy as well as plan trips and itineraries for my next visit home. Buon Viaggio!
Stockholm is on the 3D Map
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 2:40 PM
Stockholm, which is said to be referred to as the “Venice of the North” may not receive a lot of sunlight throughout the year, but today it’s in the limelight as the newest city to be included in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth. Watch the video below to see Stockholm, Sweden in 3D:
Stockholm is a unique geographic location - filled with historic bridges, buildings, and parks. The rich architectural history make it a fulfilling destination for the virtual tourist.
The city's oldest section is "Gamla Stan"(The Old City). It's located on the original small islands of the city's earliest settlements and features cobbled streets and medieval alleyways.
And if time is short, make sure you fly over to The Royal Palace, the official residence of His Majesty The King. Explore Stockholm in 3D with Google Earth and now with Earth view in Google Maps.
Announcing the Google Model Your Town Competition winner
Friday, May 14, 2010 10:45 AM
On April 1st, we announced the five finalist towns for the Google Model Your Town Competition and asked the public to help pick the winning town. For the past month, participants reviewed the 3D models, explored the buildings in Google Earth and watched videos of the 3D towns.
Well, we’ve tallied the votes and we’d like to congratulate our 2010 winning town: Barranco - Lima, Peru!
Jorge De Albertis Bettocchi, a 38 year-old corporate business attorney, modeled the Barranco District of Lima. He entered the competition to generate pride among his fellow citizens and created his 3D models to serve as a tool for tourism, promotion, investment and preservation of Barranco’s historic architecture. Jorge also created a blog, Barranco 3D Project, that includes descriptions of his models, his modeling process, community involvement and press videos.
Jorge is also a musician who plays the keyboard, has a small recording studio, and has participated in the production of concerts in Peru. “I started creating SketchUp models in 2007 when I was asked to design a stage for a rock concert, and a concert-production partner recommended using SketchUp. Since then I have not stopped using it and it is the only 3D design program I have ever used.”
Jorge, you have impressed people all over the world with your SketchUp models. Congratulations to the Barranco community!
We’ll be awarding the local school district with US$10,000 and the SketchUp team is planning a visit to Barranco later this summer to recognize their efforts. Visit the Google Earth Gallery to download a 3D tour of Barranco, Peru and visit our winners page for more details.
Thanks to all those who voted to help us find the winning town. And thanks to all the modelers out there who submitted entries — we hope you'll continue to add 3D buildings to Google Earth!
Earth view in Google Maps widens audience for 3D buildings
Thursday, May 13, 2010 5:22 PM
Last month’s release of Earth view in Google Maps has folks in the Google Boulder office especially excited. For the past four years we’ve been working hard to develop 3D modeling tools and a 3D building approval system to help enhance the experience inside Google Earth. Now anyone with a web browser and the Google Earth Plugin can enjoy the 3D Earth experience directly in Google Maps. A rich, interactive 3D view is a great complement to the 2D map view. 
The new Earth View is also big news for creators of 3D buildings as it expands the audience for models. Not only are they visible in Google Earth, but they’re also viewed by all Google Maps users. And now that it’s even easier to access them, high-quality 3D models are more valuable.
If you have models that are in the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth, it’s now easier than ever to share your building with others. From Earth view, click on “Link” in the upper right corner to grab a URL for sharing.
Explore more 3D models in Lisbon
Friday, May 7, 2010 1:15 PM
The city of Lisbon, Portugal is the latest addition to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. Over 14,000 models have been added to fill in around areas where many user-contributed models already existed.
Sé de LisboaSince Google Building Maker added Lisbon to the available cities to model, geo-modelers have been adding incredible 3D buildings throughout the area.
However, let’s not forget some of the amazing SketchUp models that have been in the 3D Buildings layer even earlier:
We encourage you to explore the rest of Lisbon in Google Earth, or with the new Earth view in Google Maps!
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SketchUp in a high school history class
Thursday, May 6, 2010 3:05 PM
Pick a high school - any high school - and in the history class you might find some of the students doodling, yawning and pretending to stay awake. Replace that scene with an enthusiastic teacher and a healthy dose of SketchUp and you might see every student engaged! After all, it’s not every day a high school student can model a local building and upload to Google Earth for the world to see. In some cases, they might get so engaged they chomp at the bit to get access to tutorial videos while on road trips.
Does this sound far fetched? Not to Hartford High School teacher, Michael Hathorn, who introduced his class to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth and started teaching them about local history while they used SketchUp to model their home town of Hartford, Vermont. The class caught on quickly and now have over 75 models in their Hartford History Project collection in the Google 3D Warehouse. Over 50 buildings have been accepted into Google Earth.
The benefits of students being engaged in their own learning has not been lost on Michael. He told us, “Some teachers may say the book history is more important but I feel like the end result is these guys are teaching, verses learning and that’s when you really become a student - when you make that transition to teaching. I think learning SketchUp is really important for a history class like this.”
Technology has been a key part of the class, and the idea that the students would share their local history with the world. They created a website and blog to accompany and showcase the 3D models. With each model created, a history of the building is researched and added to the growing website dedicated to their town. It’s definitely worth a look.
We were so intrigued by the efforts of these students that we highlighted them in a new video:
Building positions are now automatically updating
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 11:26 AM
We have some good news to share with respect to 3D buildings and Google Earth imagery.
A common challenge for geo-modelers are imagery updates that occur after a building model has been published to Google Earth. In some updates models were unaffected, but in others, models became misaligned (some significantly).
We appreciate the fact that our enthusiastic geo-modeling community prefers to spend their time creating buildings instead of chasing imagery around. Our engineers have been hard at work solving this problem.
Very shortly we'll be running a program that identifies models that have been affected by imagery shifts, and automatically adjust them. The earth is an imperfect place so it’s possible, that not every building will adjust perfectly. However, our testing suggests that this new system of tracking imagery updates should help immensely. This new feature will work both retroactively and into the future. You can be rest assured that we’ll be trying to keep your models aligned properly going forward as our imagery is updated.
If your model was affected by this process you'll see a notification on your model details page. The notification will indicate whether we were able to automatically adjust the model or not.
In either case, we encourage you to review your models in the Google 3D Warehouse to see whether any action is required by you. We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue has caused and hope that this system improvement will be met with much user-happiness.
3D printing from SketchUp just got a little easier
Friday, April 30, 2010 10:13 AM
i.materialise is a web-based 3D printing service provider. You give them a computer model and some money, and they send you a physical model in return. Pretty simple, really.
Except that 3D printing is usually anything but simple. Printing SketchUp models involves file conversion, scale conversion and quite a bit of checking for mysterious things like "watertightness". With demand for rapid prototyping on the rise, companies like Materialise (and a few others) are doing their best to make the SketchUp-to-object printing process easier than ever.
How it works
The new SketchUp plugin from i.materialise is essentially a wizard: After installing it, you open a model, launch the plugin and go through the steps. You scale your model to make it fit on the printing "plate", indicate areas of glazing (transparency), and even add ready-made elements (like trees) from a collection of "guaranteed-to-print" objects supplied by i.materialise. When you're ready, the plugin lets you one-click-upload your prepared model for printing.
A model printed from a SketchUp file using the i.materialise pluginHere are some more facts:
- The i.materialise SketchUp plugin is free to download and use
- Printed models can be either monochrome or full-color; fixed prices start around €300/$350
- Models can be as big as 150 mm by 230 mm by 140 mm high (about 6 x 9 x 5.5 inches high)
- For now, the i.materialise SketchUp plugin is Windows-only
- There’s a terrific PDF Manual that you can download -- it answered all my questions
Enter the Design Challenge
To kick things off, the folks at i.materialise have even sponsored a little competition. The World of Houses SketchUp Design Challenge invites anyone to submit a SketchUp model for consideration. A jury (of which I am a part) will pick their three favorite models; the winners will receive a printed model as a prize. Take a look at the challenge website for all the details, but do it soon -- the deadline for submissions is May 24, 2010.
Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist
SketchUp training for kitchen & bath designers
Thursday, April 29, 2010 5:00 PM
If you’re a kitchen & bath designer who’s interested in learning more about using SketchUp in your workflow, this one’s for you. Our SketchUp Authorized Training Center friends at School are planning a Designer Bootcamp for late May. You’ll learn how to use SketchUp Pro, LayOut and the 3D Warehouse to make your process easier, more efficient and more fun.
WHEN: May 26, 27 and 28
, 2010
WHERE: Orlando, Florida, USA
HOW MUCH: $699 for the 3-day event (18 hours of hands-on training)
For more information, check out School’s blog post about the event.
New Earth view highlights 3D buildings
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:45 PM
Earlier this week Google announced the new Earth view in Google Maps. Earth view uses the Google Earth plugin to show 3D buildings, imagery, and terrain in the browser on Google Maps.
The Google Boulder office (where Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker are developed) is particularly excited how 3D buildings modeled by the Google SketchUp community are used to demonstrate the new Earth view feature.
By clicking on the “Use Earth view” link in Google Maps, you can see a tour of 36 famous places and landmarks around the world -- 24 of those are 3D buildings created with Google SketchUp.
You can see who created the models by clicking on the author link next to the thumbnail image. This will open a new browser window that displays all of the 3D models created by that author.
Congratulations to all the geo-modelers whose 3D models were featured in the launch!
More sharing options in the 3D Warehouse
Monday, April 26, 2010 5:05 PM
When we recently added some sharing options to the Google 3D Warehouse there was one we were itching to add (the support wasn’t yet public so we couldn’t): Google Buzz. Two weeks later, the Buzz team did its job (you may have seen their recent blog post) and we're pleased to support sharing with Google Buzz on the 3D Warehouse. As an added bonus, we also added support for MySpace (found under the “Share” dropdown).
Here's a tip for those of you who like to share our "swivel view" of your 3D model: If you add Google Reader as a connected site to Google Buzz, you get swivel view in Buzz. Open Google Buzz and look for the “connected sites” link:
Click the link and make sure Google Reader is added. Then, share a model you find in the 3D Warehouse with Reader (it’s the 2nd icon in the list). You’ll see your Reader share now appears in Buzz - complete with swivel!
Discussions in the 3D Warehouse
Friday, April 23, 2010 7:00 PM
Many of you are aware that there is a Google Group for geo-modeling enthusiasts. In the Group, folks help each other learn how to model for Google Earth, share tips and tricks, and get questions answered from the Google team.
We're enthusiastic about these discussions and happy to announce that we’ve improved the connection to the Google 3D Warehouse. Now, if you visit the 3D Warehouse in English you'll see links that previously took you to Google Groups will now go to a new page: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/forum (you can also find this link labeled “Forum” at the bottom of every page).
If you’ve visited our group previously, don’t worry, everything is still there - you're still signed up, the discussions are still there, and you will continue to receive email notifications if you had those set up. What we’ve added is a new, fast, and inviting way to browse and participate in the modeling community.
Some of you may have seen this in the Map Your World Community site we announced a few months ago. Same discussions, different home.
We’d like to know what you think! We’re working hard to add features to the discussion interface, and invite you to give us feedback. I’ve started a topic where you should feel free to participate.
The 3D Warehouse goes social
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 4:45 PM
Are you proud of your work? Now you can share it with your friends, followers, family or anyone in your social network.
Today we introduced a new feature in the Google 3D Warehouse that allows you to quickly and easily share 3D models using popular social networking applications including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and of course our very own Google Reader.
The ability to share news stories, videos and other Internet content has been around for a while (we use it ourselves on YouTube), so we thought our avid modeling community might enjoy sharing 3D models. You’ll find the new Share feature in the top-right corner on the model details page (like this one).
In most cases we simply incorporate the model name and a link to the Google 3D Warehouse into the respective social application, like Twitter for example:
With Google Reader however we went a step further by including swivel-views:
We’ll be enhancing this feature in the very near future, but we wanted to let you start sharing as soon as possible.
Model Your Town finalists announced: Cast your vote!
Thursday, April 1, 2010 11:30 AM
OK folks -- it’s time to vote for your favorite 3D town. The submission phase of the Google Model Your Town Competition is over and the five finalists have been selected. Without further ado, they are (in alphabetical order):
Barranco, Lima, Peru
Modeler: Jorge De Albertis
Barranco’s collection of models
Braunschweig, Niedersachsen, Germany
Modeler: Leonhard Pröttel
Braunschweig’s collection of models
Donostia - San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain
Modelers: Pedro Domecq Aguirre, Eneka Mujica, Gabriel Garcia, Jan Wesbuer, Fermin Saraseta
Donostia - San Sebastián’s collection of models
Dursley, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Modeler: John Wilkes
Dursley’s collection of models
West Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Modeler: Chris Sardinas
West Palm Beach’s collection of models
This overview video flies to each of the finalist towns:
On the voting page, you’ll find a separate one-minute video tour for each town, as well as a link to a KML file that you can use to see the models in Google Earth. Take a look at everything, decide which you think is best, then weigh in -- you have until May 1st, 2010 to cast your vote.
Congratulations to the finalists and to all of the teams who submitted entries. Choosing the top five certainly wasn’t an easy task. As you can see from this collection of the teams who entered, the competition was tough. Good luck!
Featured Modeler: Sami Araboghli
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 12:20 PM
Anyone can build 3D models for Google Earth -- no matter how old they are. Eighth grader Sami Araboghli of Sarasota, Florida is a case in point. Sami wants to put the entire world on Google Earth one building at a time. Currently, he has 179 models in the Google 3D Warehouse.
When Sami first started using Google Earth, he noticed lots of 3D buildings popping up and wanted to see his own models appear. After finding Google SketchUp, he started investigating how to take the models from his computer and share them with everyone else in Google Earth. After his first effort was not accepted for inclusion, Sami started researching ways to improve his models. He now has 29 3D buildings (and counting) accepted into Google Earth’s default 3D Buildings layer.
Sami starts his modeling experience by using Google Maps to find a building that interests him. In most cases, he hasn’t physically visited these locations; Sami uses Street View in Google Maps to acquire the imagery he needs (this video shows how). The first model he created with this method was a Citroën car dealership in Prague, Czech Republic.
Sami says: “I want to be heard, and to tell people that anyone -- no matter how old you are -- can put buildings on Google Earth and they too can be heard.”
Sami describes Google SketchUp and Google Earth as his favorite software applications; sometimes he spends the entire day making buildings. He loves the idea of being able to put buildings in Google Earth and share them with friends. Says Sami, “I think it was one of Google's coolest ideas.”
Sami also told us that he will be in the National Geographic Florida State Geography Bee competition on April 9th. Good luck Sami!
Tour the March Madness arenas in 3D
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 10:05 AM
Hello college basketball fans! It’s March and that means March Madness is in full swing. 65 teams were pitted against each other in this single elimination tournament to decide the 2010 NCAA Men's College Basketball Championship. In getting into the spirit of the season, Google launched a College Basketball webpage to see the latest results, get live information on teams, manage your bracket, and tour 3D models of the arenas.
Here at the SketchUp office, we gathered 14 models of the arenas and added them to a Featured Collection. These models are located all over the country, and largely created by users like you. Especially cool is the model of the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City, where you can fly inside and see the interior of the model! Both the Edward Jones Dome and the HSBC Arena are great examples of high quality photo-texturing, and the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was created using Google Building Maker.
We also put together a 3D tour (kml file) of these arenas for Google Earth 5. You can see the relation of the cities to one another and explore the surrounding 3D models. Creating a tour like this is a snap with the touring feature in Google Earth 5.
So explore the collection, enjoy the tour and hopefully rejoice in how well your bracket still looks.
Shooting for three: Keeping up with the Madness
Thursday, March 18, 2010 11:00 AM
(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long blog)
Do you feel it, sports fans? Has the anticipation fully gripped your college basketball soul? It's definitely got my attention. Therefore I've embarked on my third consecutive journey into mapping the NCAA College Basketball tournament. This may have caused a bit of personal March madness - a lot of long nights and triple-checking each arena placemark - but I hope you’ll enjoy the result. I’ve made a Google Earth KMZ file that includes the home arenas of the field of 65, and the 14 tournament venues. Each entry in the field of 65 is color coded by region and the game sites have a special basketball icon this year.
You may wonder why I’ve kept this up for three years. Well, aside from the fundamental fact that I'm a college hoops nut, I just so happen to also love seeing the geo-spatial distribution of the teams. The research and compliation of the information led me to several interesting facts you can see for yourself in the layer and then use to wow your friends, such as:
- There are two first-round matchups that pit two teams which have the same mascots
- Bears, Eagles, Gophers, Grizzlies, and Lions have a common trait: they are all 'Golden'
- This year’s tournament is quite colorful: Blue Devils, Mean Green, Orangemen, Big Red, and Yellow Jackets
This My Map also shows you all the key locations for the Madness, color-coded for your viewing pleasure. The East division is indicated by a blue pin; South with green; Midwest with red; and West with cyan. The pins with a dot in the center tell you who the #1 seeds are. View the College Basketball Tournament 2010 in a large map.
Travel to the tournament without leaving home! All 14 arenas are in the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth, ready for you to explore. Take a tour of these 3D models by watching the video below or download this kml tour and open it in Google Earth 5. Be sure to check out the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City -- even the court is modeled.
Also, teaming up with a few other March Madness enthusiasts, we’ve created a page, google.com/collegebasketball2010, where all of you basketball fans can find additional Google tools to help you track the tournament. Keep up with your favorite teams and get up-to-date information on scores, schedules, and brackets with our iGoogle gadget. By doing a quick search for your favorite team, you can see live scores. If you haven’t already made a bracket, check out our Google docs tournament bracket template to help you create and manage your pool in an online spreadsheet. You can also see real time search results so you never miss any March Madness news or chatter!
For all the times when I can’t be planted in front of my television watching the action (or during those pesky commercial breaks), these tools will keep my head in the game!
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