As reported by the Google Earth Blog, there are a few new 3D cities in Google Earth — Pittsburgh, PA and Seattle, WA. There may be others, but those are the two that have been found so far.
I’ll keep poking around see if any other cities have fresh 3D imagery in them. Here’s a shot from Pittsburgh, which looks great.
Just a few weeks after they added a bunch of new 3D cities to Google Earth, there appear to be a few more. As of right now, according to the Google Earth Blog, the new cities are Los Angeles and San Diego. As with the other cities, these two are absolutely stunning.
There are likely some others, but those are all we know about for now. If you hear of any others, please let us know and we’ll update this post.
As reported by the Google Earth Blog, Google Earth is now featuring thousands of new 3D buildings. Some of the updated cities include:
According to Nate Irwin, version 6.2 of the Virtual Earth map control is coming on September 22nd. This new map control brings a lot of great features to the table, including landmark-based directions and real-time weather in 3D.
Here’s my big question, though — where’s the new imagery? Unless I’ve missed something, they haven’t added any new imagery since July, and they haven’t updated any 3D cities since June. I absolutely love their “version 2″ cities in 3D, and was hoping we’d see a steady stream of them.
Any idea when more might be coming our way?
Google Earth Blog has revealed some extra 3D buildings that were recently added to Google Earth. Some of the cities with new models are:
Since there wasn’t an official list provided, there may be more out there. If you notice any other areas with new buildings, please let us know in the comments.
We mentioned it yesterday, but now we have details of the imagery update in Virtual Earth, thanks VE: An Evangelist’s Blog.
I had hoped to see more of their awesome “version 2.0″ 3D cities added, but no new ones were added this time. Still, it’s a very impressive update!
Here’s part of the list:
Microsoft Ultracam Orthos
Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - US
Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - Australia
Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - Europe
Orthos - US (0.5m)
Satellite - Worldwide
The Virtual Earth 3D blog has a post today that explains in detail how they create each 3D city. From the article:
Microsoft’s acquisition of Vexcel Corporation, a 20-year old provider of remote sensing solutions, provided the Virtual Earth team with a broad background in photogrammetry, geospatial data production, and digital elevation model (DEM) generation and refinement. The models and their texturing are generated from aerial imagery generally captured at a 15 cm ground sample distance (GSD) by planes flying at roughly 5,500 feet over the target city and capturing a minimum of 5 views for each building (top and 4 sides). Since the Vexcel acquisition, this aerial imagery is increasingly being captured using the Vexcel UltraCAM series of high-resolution digital cameras, providing Virtual Earth’s 3D display with sub-meter accuracy.
Along with being able to generate massive numbers of models per city, they’re also able to load quickly for each user. In fact, this is one of my favorite things about Virtual Earth. They’ll load 3D models very quickly and very low-res, then slowly sharpen them up as you zoom in on them.
Google Earth, on the other hand, can only load full-res models. Google’s models tend to look a little better than the ones in Virtual Earth, but the quantity and load time make VE’s cities look much better.
The full article goes into much more detail, and it’s well worth reading.
To go with yesterday’s 36 TB imagery update, Virtual Earth now has another 60 cities in 3D. Amazing!
The list:
CALIFORNIA
* Chino (124 sq. mi.)
* Corona (65.17 sq. mi.)
* El Monte (129 sq. mi.)
* Fontana (100 sq. mi.)
* Fullerton (122 sq. mi.)
* Ontario (99.43 sq. mi.)
* Pasadena (108 sq. mi.)
* Riverside (123 sq. mi.)
* San Bernardino (126 sq. mi.)
COLORADO
* Arvada (207 sq. mi.)
* Aurora (237 sq. mi.)
* Boulder (131 sq. mi.)
* Lakewood (108 sq. mi.)
CONNECTICUT
* Hartford (89.32 sq. mi.)
* New Haven (70.29 sq. mi.)
* Waterbury (81.46 sq. mi.)
IOWA
* Davenport (93.46 sq. mi.)
IDAHO
* Nampa (103 sq. mi.)
ILLINOIS
* Peoria (83.34 sq. mi.)
* Springfield (79.38 sq. mi.)
* Waukegan (77.33 sq. mi.)
KANSAS
* Kansas City (53.21 sq. mi.)
* Overland Park (168 sq. mi.)
* Topeka (74.54 sq. mi.)
* Wichita (97.86 sq. mi.)
MASSACHUSSETS
* Lowell (85.32 sq. mi.)
* Springfield (87.43 sq. mi.)
* Worcester (54.55 sq. mi.)
MISSOURI
* Gladstone (82.76 sq. mi.)
* Independence (83.61 sq. mi.)
* Kansas City (94.76 sq. mi.)
* St Louis (129 sq. mi.)
NORTH CAROLINA
* Cary (83.93 sq. mi.)
* Charlotte (75.73 sq. mi.)
* Durham (113 sq. mi.)
* Fayetteville (99.34 sq. mi.)
* Greensboro (91.59 sq. mi.)
* Raleigh (104 sq. mi.)
NORTH DAKOTA
* Fargo (86.02 sq. mi.)
NEW HAMPSHIRE
* Manchester (88.08 sq. mi.)
OHIO
* Cleveland (122 sq. mi.)
OREGON
* Eugene (90.13 sq. mi.)
* Gresham (148 sq. mi.)
* Hillsboro (111 sq. mi.)
* Salem (77.59 sq. mi.)
RHODE ISLAND
* Providence (82.71 sq. mi.)
SOUTH DAKOTA
* Rapid City (207 sq. mi.)
* Sioux Falls (64.72 sq. mi.)
UTAH
* Provo (79.74 sq. mi.)
* Salt Lake City (99.66 sq. mi.)
* West Valley City (95.8 sq. mi.)
VIRGINIA
* Newport News (144 sq. mi.)
* Norfolk (172 sq. mi.)
* Richmond (99.76 sq. mi.)
WISCONSIN
* Eau Claire (86.58 sq. mi.)
* Green Bay (85.28 sq. mi.)
CANADA
* Lachine (60.9 sq. mi.)
UNITED KINGDOM
* Liverpool (43.04 sq. mi.)
Very impressive, I must say…
Microsoft has just released a new version of Live Search Maps (named Gemini), as well as revealed a few more places that were updated in the past few days.
The new version has a lot of cool stuff:
You really need to read their full post to get details about all of those enhancements.
Also, there was more to their latest imagery update than we posted a few days ago. In addition to all of that Birds Eye data, the following was also added:
Birds Eye Imagery
Ortho Imagery
Satellite Imagery
All in all, it amounts to an astounding amount of new stuff for VE. Very impressive!
Yesterday, Microsoft added 3D data to a bunch of cities. They include:
Chicago, in particular, is quite impressive. Enlarge the screenshot at the top, check out a great video of it, or go see it for yourself!
