Google Building Maker - New!

Google Building Maker - New!

Contributors will be able to help creat buildings for over 50 cities.
(likely to expand in the future)


"We [Google] like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks. Basically, you pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes – both of which we provide. When you're done, we take a look at your model. If it looks right, and if a better model doesn't already exist, we add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. You can make a whole building in a few minutes."


The YouTube Video shows how fast it is to add/contribute your own buildings, Google will check them and when verified they will acknowledge your work.
Building Maker in Cardiff - with simple tools to create buildings

Requirements before you can contribute:

• Building Maker is an online tool, and it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.)
• Before you can add a building to Google Earth, you need to sign in to your Google Account (so you get credit for what you contribute).
• Models you create with Building Maker "live" in the Google 3D Warehouse (a giant, online repository of 3D models).
• You can use Google SketchUp (the free, general-purpose 3D modeling tool) to edit or otherwise modify anything you make with Building Maker.
• Make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed on your computer.
• If using an Apple Mac, you need to download the Google Earth plug-in directly.

Google Building Maker
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html

source:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html

Carmenta Mobile (N95)

Carmenta Mobile
'The future of maps in mobile phones'



"Carmenta Mobile is a high performance map engine for mobile phones, targeting companies that want to provide advanced Location Based Services applications around maps, routing and geocoding"

Carmenta Mobile can be easily embedded into a mobile application as it provides a rich set of features such as:

• 2D and 3D maps with 3D buildings and landmarks
• Onboard and/or offboard (loaded from server) maps
• Maps as images or vector data
• In-car personal navigation
• Pedestrian personal navigation
• Friend finder
• Proximity search, “where is the closest restaurant from my location”
• Location based games
• Tracking
• Fleet management

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBGvkmmSkWI

http://www.carmenta.com/company is a company producing high-class geospatial software products.

Google Maps goes 2.5D

Google Maps goes 2.5D
First there was plain old maps, then building outlines, now they have grown... upwards


See New York in 2.5D in Google Maps.

Other US Cities have also been updated.

Mapperz

3D Berlin - Google Earth

3D Berlin - Google Earth - The Official Berlin 3D City Model


Nice Building Textures


Inside IMAX in Google Earth

In English or in German

Fast internet connection required 2mb+

mapperz

Google Earth, More Buildings & More Google Maps

Google Earth, More London 3D buildings



Google Maps in Google Earth



Rotation of Google Maps in Google Earth

Mapperz Source and more useful information: Google Earth Blog

"this is a handy thing worth keeping in your "My Places" and turning on when you need a map-like perspective, but still in 3D. (Tip: you can adjust the transparency by changing the parameter in the network link from &TRANS=80 to 100 - no transparency, 0 - fully transparent)"

Mapperz agrees very worthy of 'My Places' and that a good tip on transparency.

update:
Google Earth is now available for the Apple Mac using OS X 10.3.9+
more information here

Google Earth Download Page

Oblique Aerial Photos & More 3D Buildings Windows Live Local / Virtual Earth

Some nice 3D Photographic Images coming from Microsoft is are making their way through Windows Live Local / Virtual Earth


Monte Carlo



Miami in 3D
(use IE7 with 3D Virtual Earth Plugin pre-installed)

Source: Virtual Earth Blog

Google Earth Beta 4 Updates

Update via Ogle Earth

• US Congress information has been updated to reflect the 110th Congress (Senators and Representatives) who took office on January 4th.
• Updated content from the GeoWeb layer data sources (example, more than double the number of Panoramio photos)
  
• Updates to other data layers (Volcanoes, ESA images, Tracks4Africa, etc.)
  
• Updates to GEC [Google Earth Community] content to capture latest posts there.
  ...and as always, lots of subtle changes to refine both client at data.
  
  
  
• The Overview Map - View> Overview Map (Ctrl +M)
• New Layers and Content - Yelp Reviews, 3D Buildings (from 3D Warehouse), Roads of Brazil, Geographic Web (more Panoramio photos) and Sunrise Earth

Seems the big upadates are available with Google Earth 4 beta this allows to view higher quality 3D Buildings - many of which are photo-textured. Mapperz recommends that you install Google Earth 4 beta (build 4.0.2722) because it loads these models faster than the previous releases.

Source and more details: Google Earth Blog