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!
New Earth view highlights 3D buildings
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:45 PM
St Louis is now available in Building Maker
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 9:30 PM
Today, we’re pleased to announce the “Gateway to the West”, Saint Louis, Missouri, is available for modeling in Google Building Maker. Building Maker is a fun, easy-to-use 3D modeling tool for adding 3D buildings to Google Earth. Choose St. Louis from the drop down menu and then pick your location to start modeling with photos that we provide.
Please keep in mind that even if a 3D model already exists in the the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth - the best model wins. To see the existing 3D models, click on the Earth button in top right corner. If you can improve on what’s already there, here’s your chance!
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!
Towns galore!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 9:30 AM
The deadline for entries to the Google Model Your Town Competition has passed and we’ve received some stunning town models. Over 160 teams entered and we’ve gathered many of the collections in an official Competition Collection you can peruse now. The five finalists have been notified and they will be publicly announced on April 1st. Cast your vote for your favorite town between April 1st and May 1st on the voting page that will be live on the competition site. We’ll announce the winning town on or around May 15th. Stay tuned!
3D Buildings get smart
Thursday, February 25, 2010 8:33 AM
(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)
The 3D buildings in Google Earth are a great way to understand an area visually, and they just got better at conveying information about the place itself. Currently, you can click on model that was created by 3D modelers using tools like Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker to open a balloon.
Today, we've added two new sections to those balloons: Photos of nearby places and Nearby places.
Not only can you learn more about the place from the balloon, but you can also dig deeper by following the links. Want to see more nearby photos and places? What to learn about the Ferry Building listed as a nearby place? Click the links in the balloon to explore further.
Next time you're exploring a city with 3D buildings, watch for the familiar glow as you hover over a building, and give it a click. You might learn something new about the place.
Building Maker in 8 more cities and 25 new languages
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 3:30 PM
Today, we released two new international and six US cities for Google Building Maker. We now have high-resolution, multi-angle aerial imagery available for over 75 cities -- quickly modeling buildings for context or Google Earth just keeps getting easier.
New cities (in blue): Seville, Spain; Berlin, Germany; Jacksonville, FL; St. Petersburg, FL; Clearwater, FL; Raleigh, NC; Memphis, TN; Houston, TXThere’s even more in store for our international users with this release! We’ve added support for more languages, so now your favorite online geo-modeling tool is available in a total of 39 languages.
New languages:
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese (Traditional)
Chinese (Simplified)
Croatian
English (United Kingdom)
Filipino
Greek
Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish (Latin America)
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
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Geo-modelers: Join us in Zurich!
Friday, February 12, 2010 10:20 AM
There's a growing community of people who have taken it upon themselves to model the whole world in 3D. Some are using Google SketchUp, some are using Google Building Maker, and some are using both together. There's a also a growing community of people who are using Google Map Maker to author and edit rich, 2D maps.
We decided to host a mini-conference that will bring 2D and 3D geo-content creators together for the first time: The 2010 Google Mapper/Modeler Summit is scheduled to take place on March 22 and 23 in Zurich, Switzerland. We're keeping the attendance small (fewer than a hundred people) to encourage conversations and dialog. In the same vein, the format for the event will be "unconference" -- specific session topics will be decided at the Summit, by the attendees themselves.
We have places left for geo-modelers: If you're an experienced geo-modeler who would like to attend, please fill out this form to request an invitation. Since spots are limited and there's no charge for participating, we ask that you provide the following two pieces of information on the form:
- Collection of models: A link to a 3D Warehouse collection that contains geo-models you've built and contributed
- Brief statement: A short paragraph (3 or 4 sentences) that outlines what you hope to gain by attending the conference. Please also mention any special knowledge or skills you might be able to contribute.
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Building Maker in the land down under
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:20 AM
We're excited to announce the appearance of a fourth continent in Google Building Maker: Australia. This doesn't mean you have to eat Vegemite, know what a boomerang is or sing a Men at Work song to get started -- just visit Building Maker and select the city where you wish to start modeling.
In addition to Melbourne, Australia, we've also added four others:
- Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Cincinnati, USA
The addition of these five locations brings the total number of Building Maker cities to 71.
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Madrid goes 3D!
Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:52 PM
Madrid, Spain is the latest city to be introduced to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth.
The City of Madrid contains scores of beautiful structures ranging from art museums and classical monuments to palatial government buildings. The prevalence of architectural wonders may explain why passionate geo-modelers have created thousands of models there (using both Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker) -- the largest concentration of 3D models anywhere the world!
To start your virtual tour, I recommend you fly to El Palacio real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid), the official residence of the King of Spain. From there I'd fly over to the Puerta de Alcalá, a famous classical monument located in the Plaza de la Independencia (Independence Square), and then over to the Monumento a Alfonso XII en el Parque del Buen Retiro, a beautiful monument that is among the greatest in Europe.
And don't miss the Plaza de Cibeles where the famous statue Fuente de Cibeles is surrounded by trees and beautiful buildings, including the stunning Palacio de Comunicaciones(Madrid City Hall) and Banco de España (Bank of Spain) buildings.
If I were to visit Madrid for real, I think I'd want to stay at the Palace Hotel, which is a short walk to the famous Prado Museum (one of my all-time favorite models in Google Earth) where you can fly inside and experience the great works of art.
Fútbol (American soccer) fan? Madrid is the home to Real Madrid, who play in the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Olé
Useful updates to 3D Warehouse and Building Maker
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 12:35 PM
The update to the 3D Warehouse we just released includes a couple of additions we think you'll like. If you've ever submitted a building for Google Earth and had it rejected because of a "Processing Failed" error, you've probably been a little confused. With this release, we've added more detail to the feedback: You should now have a section of your model's details page that describes why it didn't make it through the processing pipeline.
Some common ones include:
- Too much geometry: You've modeled a building in more detail than we're able to use.
- Corrupt image file: One of your photo-texture images isn't a valid JPG or PNG image.
In many cases, the information provided in the feedback section will be enough for you to identify the problem and fix it. Otherwise, we plan to release Help Center articles to walk you through the steps required to repair your model. We hope the additional feedback helps.
Additionally, we've made some changes to Building Maker to help fix a common texturing problem. Many of you have built models only to have them returned with an "Incomplete Texturing" feedback notice. You then take a closer look at the model and realize one or more of the faces are black. What happened? Usually, this problem occurs when the model hasn't been constrained in enough images. Building Maker will now check your model for these faces before you submit it, and warn you if the model needs additional constraints. No waiting!
Enjoy, and please (as always) let us know what you think.
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See recent models in Building Maker
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:55 AM
Today, we released an update to Google Building Maker that contains a few improvements we think you'll like.
When viewing one of the available locations in Building Maker, you'll notice that a number of blue markers appear on the map. These markers are visual indicators where buildings have recently been modeled. We introduced them to help prevent collisions where multiple people are modeling the same building and to enable users to see where active modeling is occurring. Since the blue markers only represent recent models, it's always a good idea to view a building with the "Earth" button prior to modeling to ensure that one doesn't already exist.
You'll also notice that the blue markers are clickable. If you click one, it will display a pop-up that identifies the name of the model and its author. The pop-up also contains a "Create building nearby" link, that switches the view to the "Editor" mode where you can begin modeling. If you happen to be the author of that building, it will also contain an "Edit this building" link.
As a reminder, if you see a city that contains a blue boundary, don't let that stop you from modeling there. If you publish a model of equal or greater quality (more detailed) than ours, we'll replace it. The other benefit of publishing Building Maker (or SketchUp) models where existing auto-generated models from Google exist, is that you can attach metadata (address, description, etc) to them, thus making the new building clickable.
Last but not least, you'll also notice that two new cities were added to the list: Milan, Italy and Miami, Florida. Happy modeling!
New blocks available in Building Maker
Friday, December 18, 2009 1:05 PM
The Google Building Maker geometry team has been busy adding a few more freeform blocks to enable you to model more complex roofs and generally non-rectangular shapes. This is a result of our plan to continuously enhance the capabilities of this new web-based modeling application by listening to you and developing new features based on your feedback.
Specifically we have added these two new freeform blocks:
Horizontal Freeform Block: You might be familiar with the "Vertical Freeform Block" which is very useful to model buildings that have irregular footprints, insets, or protrusions. Now, we have extended this concept by adding the horizontal version of this block. You can use it very nicely for roofs with partial cylinders, stepped flat roofs, or sawtooth shaped roofs. This new block is also ideal for modeling arches with a single block, as opposed to many different ones - this can save a lot of time. Here is a quick video to demonstrate an ideal use case in Nürnberg, Germany - 2min:
If you look closely, you will notice two little triangles near a couple of points of the block - they indicate which points are at the bottom, so that you can properly place it on top of an other block or on the ground.
Freeform Polygon: This is another very powerful block; in technical terms, it's basically an n-sided flat polygon. It is extremely handy when you're modeling irregular roofs or patch holes that are hard to do with the more regular blocks, but, be careful not to overuse it, since it will require more effort to locate it in multiple images. In general, when you're using Building Maker, try to represent a building with large simple blocks where possible - basically "block" out the building with minimum effort, then add detail and work on the irregular portions with the polygon where needed. Here is an example for Venice (which some of you have noticed, has a lot of irregular buildings due to the medieval construction) - 4min:
Again, we've introduced a small marker at a corner of the triangle - this should make it easier to keep track of how the triangle is oriented when you switch from one video to an other. Also, keep in mind that as with any freeform block, you can add points by just simply clicking on an edge.
And most importantly, have fun modeling and keep those great models coming!
Featured Modelers: NilsW and Do-nuko
Monday, December 14, 2009 11:25 AM
Google Building Maker has been a hit since its release and several individuals have been geo-modeling their cities using the new tool. With over 315 buildings in Switzerland, NilsW is rapidly filling in unbuilt areas in Zurich, Switzerland. While on the other side of the world in Sapporo, Japan, do-nuko has added over 160 buildings.
Building Maker is a recent addition to the modeling tools available from Google. It offers access to geo-accurate, oblique photographs taken by an airplane and a simple set of building blocks. It all happens via web browser: users align the blocks to the imagery and Building Maker maps the photos to the building shape, then uploads the resulting photo-textured model to the Google 3D Warehouse. Each building is then reviewed for inclusion in Google Earth. Building Maker supplements our geo-modeling tool set that already included Google SketchUp, the ideal software for creating complex, customized 3D buildings using photographs from any source.
NilsW uses all of Google's geo-modeling tools. "I've been a Google Earth user for years and I really love the 3D buildings. It's a thrill to make buildings and know that they can be seen by the whole world. The first building I made was in Zürich, where I live and work. I found the modeling process to be pretty easy because I had already been working with 3D programs, although I have to say that SketchUp is a lot more fun than those. I used the Google Earth snapshot in SketchUp to model and texture the buildings from photos I had taken around the buildings."
He saw the potential for Building Maker to help him model more buildings, more quickly. "I love Building Maker for simple buildings. I started using right away because it let's me model buildings without having to go out and take pictures. It's also easier for me to figure out the building dimensions. It's really fast, though I'd like to see more tools for making complex forms. Maybe there could be an Expert Mode in Building Maker. I am using SketchUp for complex buildings. SketchUp is great for detailed modeling work. Creating buildings is really fun and I want to be famous!" NilsW works in IT and is a photography (loves Panoramio) and architecture enthusiast.
Do-nuko also works in technology as a programmer and loves MANGA. He also started with an interest in Google Earth's 3D building layer. "I wanted to put my town in Google Earth, of course; but it seemed like an impossibly big task. That's why when I first started with Building Maker, it was a shock! I couldn't believe how fast and accurately I could model. It made me realize that modeling my town could be a reality. I have completed most of the buildings along one of our main streets (see embedded video). Working with simple buildings is really easy. If you have a little patience you can do even complicated buildings too. I want to ask the developers of Building Maker to please also add tools to make rounded roofs!"
Check out what these two master Building Makers have put together in this video, and be sure to check out their Profiles on the Google 3D Warehouse.
New Building Maker cities
Thursday, December 3, 2009 11:18 AM
Today we added six new cities that can be used to model with Building Maker. They are:
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Hiroshima, Japan
- Saitama, Japan
- Miami Beach, FL USA
- Orlando, FL USA
If you're not familiar with Building Maker, it's a new 3D modeling tool for adding buildings to Google Earth. It's fun to use, and an easy way to get on the 3D map. Oh, and be forewarned, it can be addictive!
Happy Modeling!
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Put your town on the 3D map: Google Model Your Town Competition
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 12:06 PM
People use Google SketchUp for all sorts of things. One of them is geo-modeling – making photo-textured models of real-life buildings that appear in Google Earth. For some, geo-modeling is a hobby; they get a kick out of building something that provides a real benefit to the people in their community. Local geo-modelers are the unsung heroes of the virtual world – no longer.
Our first-ever Google Model Your Town Competition is by far the biggest 3D modeling challenge we've ever launched. It's open to just about everyone (not just students), just about everywhere in the world. Form a team, model buildings (using SketchUp or Building Maker) and upload them by the end of February 2010.
You can model as many structures as you like – which types of buildings you choose to include is entirely up to you. The important thing is that your choices say something about the character and history of your town. You can even include links to videos and photo albums in your entry; this is really more of a 3D portrait contest for communities.
If your town wins, a bunch of us from the SketchUp team will visit, throw you a party and do our best to make you look like the local hero that you are. There are other prizes, too – check out the competition website for details, and start rounding up teammates!
Here's some inspiration (just to get your creative juices flowing):
Building blocks: 3D models with detailed facades
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 3:45 PM
(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)
With tools like SketchUp and Building Maker, modelers around the world have been creating remarkably high-quality 3D buildings for Google Earth -- just check out any of our Featured Modelers to see the impressive work they've been doing. We've also had local governments contributing models of their entire city - like Amherst, Massachusetts and Washington, DC - through our Cities in 3D Program.
Showing is always better than telling, especially for an interactive and vivid experience like this, so go explore the models in Google Earth. To kickstart your exploration, check out this video preview of what awaits you:
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May the best model win
Friday, November 20, 2009 3:45 PM
If you've been following our posts (or Tweets), you might be wondering why we're introducing new cities in Building Maker in the same locations where we have existing 3D buildings in Google Earth. It's pretty simple really, but allow me to explain.
If you explore any of the cities currently in Google Earth you'll notice that there is a blend of 3D data from multiple sources, including Google-created, contributed (by cities and local governments), and community-generated (geo-modelers using either SketchUp or Building Maker) buildings.
The Google-created buildings act as a base layer. While these models are an accurate depiction of the real world in their current form, we consider them to be a starting point upon which the geo-modeling community will update and improve them with higher quality models, with rich metadata about the buildings. I liken the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth to a giant 3D wiki, which, by definition, "allows visitors to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content."
Here's a couple important things to keep in mind when modeling for Google Earth:
1. Photo-textured models that meet our quality standards will automatically replace untextured models, regardless of source.
2. Photo-textured models, generated in either SketchUp or Building Maker, are reviewed against a Google-created model (if one exists), and, if it's of comparable quality and completion, we will always choose the hand-drawn model over the Google-created one.
Whether you're a new Building Maker user or an accomplished SketchUp user, the key thing to remember is that the best model should always win. Will we replace the Google-created buildings with user-generated buildings? You bet! The source of the model is irrelevant. What's important is that we're all working together to collaboratively build a virtual representation of our world.
So, keep on modeling. We look forward to seeing your creations come through the pipeline! Let's work together to create a 3D world!
New cities, new features in Building Maker
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:30 PM
- Brussels, Belgium
- Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- Cologne, Germany
- Dortmund, Germany
- Boston, MA, USA
- Las Vegas, NV, USA
- Los Angeles, CA, USA
- San Jose, CA, USA
This release expands our city offering to three new countries: Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. Brussels has architecture ranging from the medieval to the postmodern. Rotterdam has some of the tallest buildings in the Netherlands, as well as the famous cube houses. Largely rebuilt after World War II, Cologne mixes modern architecture with churches and landmarks from the Middle Ages. Church towers characterize the skyline of Dortmund, Germany. All told, there are some terrific (and challenging!) buildings to model.
In the United States, our list of cities continues to grow. In Boston, buildings such as the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall and others along the Freedom Trail are prime examples of colonial New England architecture. Boston is also an epicenter for well known universities including Boston University, M.I.T, Radcliffe, and Harvard. Las Vegas has has some of the wildest and most unique architecture available, and should test the skills of Building Maker users. Los Angeles is the second largest city in the U.S., and the area we have added includes downtown L.A., Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the UCLA campus. Finally, San Jose will be at the center of our largest coverage area in Building Maker to date. It will now be possible to model buildings in the area stretching from Gilroy, CA to Mountain View, CA.
In addition to the exciting list of new cities available in Building Maker, we've also introduced some feature updates that may interest you. First, we've introduced a Google Earth view in Location Picker. When choosing a location, you are now able to click the "Earth" view so that you can see what buildings have already been built in the area you are modeling in order to avoid duplicated effort or to look for buildings that need improvement.
Not ready to submit your model for review? Then use the new "draft save" feature. In the save dialog under "Additional options" you can now uncheck the check box for "This building is complete and ready for review." [Note: English only] This will save a draft version of the building and will not be reviewed for inclusion in Google Earth until a completed version is saved.
Finally, we've introduced a new primitive type - the "Freeform Polygon" [English only]. As the name implies, this primitive allows you to create a polygon with any number of sides. Of the primitives offered, this is the most free form shape, but it is also the most challenging to use because it is so unconstrained. It is best used when building on top of existing blocks using the snapping feature. We recommend that you first toggle off the snapping tool, drag and constrain the points of the polygon in multiple images, and then toggle on the snapping tool to glue the points to existing blocks.
We hope you enjoy these new features and building models in these new Building Maker cities.
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Join the Building Maker community
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 11:28 AM
If you'd like to connect with fellow Building Maker modelers, check out the additions we introduced to the product today. Click on the "Join the discussion" link to get to the Google Group for geo-modelers. We created this discussion group for people who model 3D buildings for Google Earth. It's a great source for tips, tricks, and other product support.
For example, someone else might be modeling buildings close to the ones you're modeling. In fact, they may be modeling the exact same building! You could use the Discussion Group to reach out to other users and find out if someone else is modeling nearby. With this tool, you can connect with some of the world's most enthusiastic and experienced modelers.
We also added a link, "Follow us on Twitter", which will take you to our Building Maker Twitter page. Follow us to get up-to-the-minute news about when new cities are introduced, new product features, new 3D buildings in Google Earth, featured modelers, and other news.
We're awash in Building Maker models!
Friday, October 23, 2009 11:30 AM
We didn't know what to expect when we released Google Building Maker last week. Would we hear crickets? Would we be hit by a tidal wave? Somewhere in-between? Well, the headline of this post says it all! We've been trying to find dry land in the sea of models you've created! So I guess you like the app!? Seriously, we're doing our very best to review and process these models into Google Earth as quickly as we can. Thousands of models are included in the first wave which will be visible in today's 3D buildings release, so look for yours!
If you don't see your model in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth, there are two possibilities: It either needs some additional work on your part to meet our acceptance criteria, or, it's still in our processing pipeline. You can check the status of your models by visiting the Google 3D Warehouse, logging into your account, and looking at the bottom of the model details page. If it's been accepted, it will look like this:
We may have been overwhelmed with the volume of models but that doesn't mean that we haven't taken notice of the incredible models that have been created. We're very impressed! In fact, we've created a new Best of Building Maker collection in the 3D Warehouse to showcase your work, like this cathedral by geo-modeler chrischibuilder.
If you'd like to stay informed on the latest Building Maker news you can follow us on Twitter. We'll be posting updates when new cities are available for modeling, tips & tricks, and other product news.
Happy modeling!
