This article by Scott Voorhis made me think about new ways that traditional newspapers could leverage new online capabilities like 3D mapping to enhance their content. The article opens with text about Microsoft leasing new office space somewhere in Cambridge. MA. I'm from DC, but I'd like to see where this area is in relation to Logan Airport, downtown, and Fenway park. "The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, which has recently acquired a number of local companies, will lease 45,000 square feet of space in One Memorial Drive, a high-rise along the Charles River near MIT, state economic development officials confirmed." The picture at right is the only one giving an indication of the building or its location. Using Virtual Earth, one could visualize the entire area beyond a single picture. For example, the following link could be used to deliver a live map that the user can scroll around: ...
This blog entry by Jeff Thurston, which describes the integration of the real world with the virtual, has echoed something that I often think about and try to show to people with video concepts because I just can't find the words to describe it. In Jeff's words: While the article points out that imagery is now being collected horizontally, to enable realistic building facades and so on, one might very well argue that even that will not survive much longer as CCTV are now growing in number, covering just about every angle in most major cities. Perhaps real-time 3D at the street level is next up, in which case we will be walking through videos, rather than still images. He's absolutely right, and I created a short video with the help of a clip from USC showing a simulated transition from satellite, to aerial, to 3D and finally to integrated "real" video stitched into the "virtual" world. Check it out. Longer Example Of Fusing Video With Virtual ...
The German Government has released some 3D buildings in Google Earth. According to the site, approximately 10% of the city is modeled, amounting to about 44,000 buildings! Following is a 2 minute clip of the experience from Washington, DC. This is great news for the virtual earth community, as it proves that third party community contribution can really work. There are also some caveats to be learned from this model. The experience is very different from other Google-supported areas like Denver (video) There are multiple detail levels depending on the importance or architectural significance of the building in question Performance is dependent on where the models come from - in this case we assume a server in Berlin Rather than show all of the buildings at once, they have implemented their own "performance algorithm" that shows buildings in a narrow field of view From the announcement: In order to convey an impression of the cityscape of Berlin, ...
I'm just catching up on blogs from the last couple of weeks and noticed Steve Lombardi's post on Virtual Earth 3D buildings video with Duncan Lawler of the MS Virtual Earth team. So I was flying around Denver in 3D with the Road style turned on, and I began to notice some buildings way outside of the downtown area - like 15 miles south! That's one of the nice things about the Road style - with its light-colored background the buildings really pop. Make sure you turn on detail (SHIFT-D) or you'll just see lifeless gray boxes. It struck me that I had no idea where all the textured buildings were in Virtual Earth, so I spent a few minutes this weekend exploring them. What I learned was that there are literally thousands (perhaps up to 100,000+) fully textured buildings in and around the initial batch of large cities. Jerry Skaw linked to all of the cities, and I extended his collection with polygons that you can access and save as a Favorite here. The roadmap at left ...
