August 23, 2007

GigaPixel Images in Google Earth

Frank Taylor at the Google Earth Blog has posted a video demonstrating a new layer in Google Earth (v 4.2 required). The layer essentially adds portals to high resolution images on to the map and allows for modal interaction with the image. The interaction starts with a sweep down to the geolocated image which is then aligned with the surrounding 3d space. You can then navigate into the image which is refined like the standard tiling approach seen in mapping sites giving you access to the full gigapixel experience.

The 3D buildings OGLE'd from Google Earth are not ready to be 3D printed off the bat. Each building is a composition of multiple vertical volumes that have walls and a ceiling but no floor. By computationally (i.e. hacked up OBJ-file-processing perl script!) copying all of the roof polygons to floor polygons, we got the job done:

neat application of google maps

"Volkswagen and Google are working together to develop a revolutionary new navigation system."