Slashdot Mirror
Google to Map San Francisco in 3D
mtz206 writes "SiliconValleyWatcher reports that "Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers and digital photographic equipment to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities. The move would trump Amazon's A9 service, which offers two-dimensional photos of buildings on US city streets.""
Worlds biggest scanner?
Will this be copyrighted then?
Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
Well, maybe if they extended their service to the rest of the world, say Europe, i'de give a damn.
i agree!
What, Google couldn't find a way to use sharks running on linux?
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." -Zapp Brannigan
Midday for us on the other side of the pond. Great when you've just come back from lunch
This is probably the reason why Google shutdown the Google Wallpaper site mentoned previously.... taking care of competitors, but in a nice way.
For every present, there is a past
wohooow, google will make us frag people in 'real' cities...
:-D
Counter Strike would be soooo much more fun
I can't see how this would be useful for regular users but I could see how this could be used to plan attacks against our country. Is there something I'm missing?
Let's just hope they'll warn the authorities and tell them of their good intentions, because I can imagine not everyone will consider the driving around in trucks 'equipped with lasers and photographic equipment' as a non-threatening activity.
"Those innocent fun games of the hallucination generation"
So when does Grand Theft Auto: Google come out?
d00d! Google rocks! I want a /. that is all google. Oh, wait...
What's the point? Ok, it'll be pretty to look at, but highly accurate maps are actually less useful in pretty much all applications than simplified thematic representations.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
... to anyone living in San Francisco: Make sure your curtains are drawn while doing things you shouldn't be doing.
"Hey mom, check out this 3D Google version of our home, hey what are you and dad up to in your bedroom??? Ewwww!"
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
.. that data being used in games like GTA.
You could visit every city they have mapped.
Yummy!
...Google plans to use sharks with frickin' LASERS on their heads to map the Atlantic seabed.
Seems like there's a lot of one upmanship going on in the mapping business. Everybody seems to be trying to outgimmick everyone else. My favourite is still Mapquest. Although they could learn a little about UI from Google, I find that MapQuest's maps provide much more information as far as street names, especially when zoomed out. I also don't really like the look of google's oversided roads.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
People respond differently to different stimuli. While you might be able to pick out the street corner you agreed to meet on from looking at a couple of lines on some paper, others (myself included) would find it beneficial to see an actual 3D visualisation of what the place looked like so that they know what and where they're aiming at.
Since mapping data can be so damned expensive, I wondered if it would be possible to use digital photographs to read civic numbers and/or street names. Assuming you could read traffic signs, the same photos may be used to gather data about driving constraints (one-way streets, stops, left/right-only turns, etc.)
That could effectively break the monopoly of the big mapmakers for those things we like to hack.
Anyone know?
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Seems to me Google does some things simply for intellectual curiosity, then ends up figuring out a way to make money off it.
Putting online versions of people in to this 3D city remappings? Wow, somebody find me a Neo.
Step 1: Strap frickin' laser beams to sharks head
Step 2: Map the ocean
Step 3: ????
Step 4: PROFIT!!!
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
At the risk of sounding like an advert (and apologies to those who feel that I do), the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London is building a 3D GIS-based model of London that will and can be used to help the public explore different urban planning outcomes (amongst other things).
h tm
About Virtual London here:
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/research/virtuallondon.
About CASA's research here:
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/research/index.htm
Declaration of Interest: Professor Mike Batty, who runs CASA, was one of my PhD supervisors.
Yes, we did (eventually) get Froogle here in the UK, but I don't believe any of the other countries have. Google maps also arrived, but again, I don't believe it covers anywhere else.
Now you have satellite imagery and 3D maps and again the UK hope for it and the rest of Europe seems to be out on a limb.
I have no doubt that the UK will eventually see this stuff (as with the others) and for that I am thankful - however our friends elsewhere in Euroland I fear will never see the light of day of some of this rather cool products.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
"...trucks equipped with lasers...", Google have finally begun their attack on the world...
Lift out of order. Bubble sort in progress.
...just nuke the site from orbit.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Ever map out where you're going, only to find that its nearly impossible to see any address numbers on buildings, making it harder than it should be to find your destination? I'd like to see streaming video that shows you the drive to wherever you're going. Of course, you could speed it up for the long parts, but show the turns so you know what to look out for. It seems like they could equip some delivery trucks (from other companies) with cameras, maybe strike a deal with UPS or Fedex, and then sort out the video later. Of course, it would take a lot of work, but it could start with smaller cities and work its way up. Now that's what I'd like to see...
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
Why only US cities? Sure there are some interesting cities in the US. But how about Paris, Rome, Rotterdam, Tokyo etc etc ?
I love the rest of the world and international types... but you gotta remember that every company thinks of their country and locale first.
Don't credit corporations with having deep rooted feelings of patriotism, you will be disappointed if you do. Every company (that is not being mismanaged) thinks about the most profitable market first so that it can bring the only people it truly cares about, the shareholders, managers and key employees, a good profit/reward. Google is launching this service in the US because they did their math and concluded it's the biggest and most profitable market.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Who cares? This would still be a /. appropriate story even if it wasn't being done by Google, but some other company. And no, you can't just ignore the article, can you? You have to reply to it, which also brings up the post count. If the Google articles didn't get many comments, do you think they'd still be posted?
Big question, why? They could instead improve the accuracy of their google maps, which puts my house nearly a block and a half away of where it should be. Then again, we pay USGS to map out GPS maps... but I can't see the point in mapping out 3D maps.
do not look at truck with remaining eye !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Always Google this and Google that! Release your anger with this therapeutical game:
http://www.bemmu.com/google
If someone can effectively turn the real world into a giant model. Something like Matrix will eventually happens! I for one know many people are literally waiting for a 3D world like this to 'play' inside. When visual reality catches on, would this be the killer app?
I thought 2D maps had troubles with things changing and the map being incorrect. Can you imagine this ? If someone even digs up the sidewalk, the thing will become invalid.
I know there are acceptable degrees of invalidity for mapping, but wouldn't adding an extra dimension to the map make it invalid even more quickly ? The applications for which one uses 3D maps are likely to require a lower error tolerance, aren't they ?
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong - I'm no 3D modelling guru or map expert)
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
IT is this ability to do new things that makes google so great !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
Especially not in yet another SlashverGoogletisement article!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
There are 3d simulations of San Francisco and London already.
1) Find details of the trucks route and the dates that Google will be mapping San Francisco.
2) Download pictures of the FBIs 50 most wanted and photoshop bodies on to them.
3) Get the local print shop to create life size cardboard cutouts.
4) Place cuts outs strategically around San Francisco. I like the thought of Osma coming out of McDonalds with a bigmac.
welcome our laser-spy truck overlords.
There will be a great deal of abuse here. Imagine some girl gives out her phone number, or some guy finds it in a phone book. They find the address, they map it out. They even know what bushes to hide behind. Neat, tech helping pervs.
I can see the mafia use this technology too. What to kill someone? How about a little research first. Lets see what roads lead to his house and away.
Hmmm... and an idea for myself. By studying these maps, I bet it would not be too hard to find a vulnerable bank to hit. Have some cohorts fake a car accident on main street, that blocks off the police station from the road that leads to the bank. Lets see.... 1022 S. Lake street is a wide building with a lot next to it, no houses. We can leave a car there to switch to. It is only 3 blocks away.
The only good thing is this won't be used by people who want to change the world. I can't see the Rodney King mob looking up their way to Beverly Hills on a laptop.
But still, what good is this. Is it a publicity move? Is it dangerous?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
If they're not careful, they're going to collapse under their over-ambition and lack of focus.
Time to take a dose of ritalin and get some focus, kids.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You mean sharks equipped with lasers, don't you? :)
Throw me a fucking bone here
But I want Google Maps of Europe.
I want it.
I want it.
I want it.
NOW.
Heya! Seems to me that these kind of vehicles are cruising the cities now... http://storagetank.nordinary.com/GoogleTruck.jpg
One giant leap for cartography. One even bigger leap for Google's 'let's justify our enormous market capitalisation' urge.
There was a project to create a 3D model of Helsinki about 10 years ago in VRML. I think it was a part of some bigger project they called Arenanet, which included map services etc.
The version I tried on the Net was basically quite ready in that sense that it had most if not all the buildings. The project however disappeared silently some years ago. There is still this site left with some panorama photos. The original site, arenanet.fi, does not exist any more. Some remnant may still be found at http://arenanet.fi/">the Internet Archive.
Somebody know more about this project?
I demand the Cone of Silence!
LEEROY!!!!!
Google and A9 are a lot like little kids on the playground:
"I've got the best search technology in the world."
"Oh yea, well mines better now."
"What?!? Well, now I've got maps of the world... from space."
"Huh? No, I've got maps from space and ground level pictures of buildings in American cities."
"Regular maps? I've got maps in 3D now."
Of course, the difference is, Google and A9 are actually telling the truth, although I'd be wary if A9 starts talking about 'their Dad's flying car.'
Fixed link: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://arenanet.fi.
Slashdot seems to screw up that URL if you put it in <a>. Sorry!
I demand the Cone of Silence!
This is just information gathering for the coming Matrix. Well the Machine World had to get that data from somewhere!
kind of reminds me of this. I have found it useful in finding what places look like before i go there.. but it's mostly just for fun.
Please, oh please use laser-equipped sharks to map near the coast!
On the other hand, from what I hear I'd have been paid peanuts if I worked there.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Would this work better if we attached the frickin' lasers to animals (native and/or alien) and let them do the mapping?
Sharks perhaps?
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/
Now thats a nice job. Get in the Google/Stanford truck and drive around (don't forget to check out the Indian dude in Google truck. Talk about cheap labor)!
While teasing a Google-employed friend about the CIA-like secrecy about his team's project at Google the other day, I got him to admit the obvious: That he is working on a project to offer a particular type of information for free that a corporation currently charges for and insert ads in the search results. Well that's the current business model for Google, no? So he's the manager of the group and has an MS in Comp Sci and a JD (research specialist). Let the inferences begin! Look out Lexis-Nexis and WestLaw. Look Fucking Out.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Wow, you saw 'Google' in the article title and you still clicked on it, just so you can whine... give me a break! I hope this article dupes a few times, just for you...
Some company in Europe could do it first.
DAMM Fiat and Peugeot for not selling their cars in the US. They are just evil! See how dumb it sounds?
I mean really if some company in Sweden was going to do the same thing and started in Stockholm no one would be bitching.
1. It is Google's home town so it makes sense to start there.
2. The US is the largest "in money" single market in the world and Google is a US company. It only makes sense that the US gets service from Google first. It would be like complaining that Nokia introduced some cool new phone in Norway first.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I haven't seen any enthusiasm about working for google except on slashdot...really,at a career fair recently..google's booth was empty the whole time...people were infact throwing jokes at the recruiter about how they only want scientists. As it is, their recruiter was pathetic. While Microsoft's booth had a huge line, and always has good recruiters. google's search returns more irrelevant results everyday...i think these are the signs of a company which will go down in the next 5 years. They need a business model and Microsoft-like people, right now with scientists only...they are gonna fall big time. Except larry and brin, i haven't heard of any phd-type creating any innovative internet thing.
Europe is already here, doing quite nicely thank you.
:-)
http://www.gta-geo.com/eng/home_e.html
Geoinformatik GmbH has modelled the whole of Coburg (about 50km).
Blinking Germans, when are they going to get round to doing Australia. There are other places in the world outside Europe you know!
For a second I thought maybe Google had done something to improve it's search...thank god its just another completely unrelated thing.
...like, for instance, putting junction numbers on motorways on maps.google.co.uk (without which the maps are useless for long-distance directions).
Huh. Of all the visions of the future William Gibson wrote about, I never expected Virtual Light would turn out to be the accurate one.
on all of the important buildings?
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
No, really...I'm curious.
Check out the link to the "Google Funded" project page. You think they could do a little better than one guy with a camer sitting in the back of an Izuzu Amiga.
Think of the cash cow such data would be. They could license out their 3d cities to video game publishers. Rockstar could churn out Grand Theft Auto for decades to come...
I said SHARKS with lasers attached to their heads...
are saying that this is a huge waste and pretty much pointless, and how Google does cool things first and then figures out how to make money off it later. But I believe that Google already knows how to make money off this.
Google makes money by selling advertising "words"... auction-style. Now imagine the space that 'words' encompass. It's friggn huge.
Now imagine how Google can make scads of money if they sell nearly limitless virtual billboards to advertisers for people using these 3D maps.
Advertiser want to put up a virtual billboard advertising a hotel when you do a virtual fly-through of the San Fransisco Bay area?
"Who's the highest bidder?".
Trump want to stick his big "TRUMP" letters on virtual models of his own hotels and casinos? He's gotta pay up.
I think this has the potential to make Google lots more advertising revenue, once they scan more cities, and make this tool free for the public.
And heck, maybe subscribers to this 3D map service can bypass the ads!
What's the business reason for this?
You know, people on Wall Street do make an effort to notice when companies are throwing away tons of money. Especially in times like this.
I would guess that Google's stock prices are going to look more and more inflated at this rate. They keep doing all these side projects, none of which contribute to their core enterprise. They could have their employees doing analysis of foreign searches for intel purposes instead. Or working on personalized search results for selected Google users (blackholing some people or grooming results for others)
Or maybe there's not much for Google employees to be doing after all.
in the fact that if you click the google category at the top, you get the messaged: Sorry, search is down at the moment. Until it's back up, you may wish to search Slashdot through Google
maps.google.com and click on "satellite"
Will they provide residents of San Francisco with sunglasses to avoid being blinded by the lasers?
Let's not forget that they are a corporation with a charter from the State of Delaware, oh wait...
Get your Unix fortune now!
Counterstrike maps!
One good turn - gets all the covers.
To see what this might look like, check out this page from a Berkeley student working on 3D city modeling.
Do we have to worry about vitual terrorism training in a simulator using this tool?
Until then, just refuse to pay the bills [Google] sends you. I mean, if you're not getting what you pay for... [...] Never mind that I'd rather see something like this done in Europe, as well, since [a US passport is getting less and less welcome abroad]
Anyway, what's stopping you personally from mapping your favorite area, and giving the results away for public use? I'd imagine that the stuff Google's using is available for purchase and use by other people, too. Set up the site, don't charge me to use it, and I'll happily consume your bandwidth and computing resourses. Heck, I'll even provide helpful unrequested input as to what cities you should [have mapped first].
The cities are changing. It would be cool to aim :)
at the specific location, look at it with the 3D
image, and then move back in time.
Surely, moving forward in time would be even cooler.
It seems to me that it should be possible to get all of the information that they need by taking multiple, overlapping pictures (say, video frames). Image analysis could get the various scale and perspective issues worked out after the fact, and save them the time and hassle of the laser measurements.
Or maybe the image processing would take so long that the laser turns out to be faster anyway. But is there an eye-safety issue, lasering arbitary objects on the street?
Mind the Gap
Stand really still for a couple of passes, and you could be a statue .. in .. SF.. oh, never mind.
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
Now they need to add 3D hookers.
I love google for being innovative and coming up with great ideas all the time. That's one thing that really gets me with M$. The amount of money they have and what innovations have they come out with, the laser mouse? All their software was either bought, stolen or just the same old thing. llamas.
Screw Europe. If they want to map some-run down third-world country, map some place we can drive to, like Mexico. Or maybe Canada.
One thing I don't like about driving in unfamiliar cities is try to figure out which lane to be in for turns, which side of the street my destination is on an where to park.
Google's maps+satellite service allows me to see lane markings on roads so figuring out which lane to be in on a crowded city street easy now.
I always thought though how cool it would be to take a virtual drive around an unfamiliar city - complete with proper road markings, lanes, stop lights, etc. Modern PCs are capable enough - it just requires a massive database... which Google may not be building.
Virtual driving allows you to familiarize yourself with every aspect of a real trip (except perhaps for roadworks / accidents).
It would also allow you to tour a city, or if you're released from the virtual driver's seat, soar above it.
Science fiction? Maybe not.
Lots of games use realistic settings. I'm thinking of The Getaway which has a very very realistic setting in London.
Wouldn't this make a great starting point for game developers that want realistic settings in cities? Seems like this would be about 75% of the work if there's a way to easily import it.
"Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers ... San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities."
Microsoft has trucks with lasers too. And they are armored.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Kudos to Google for bringing yet another cool computer trick to the masses, but don't forget that they're targeting the *extremely* competitive space of local search, which everyone expects to be a HUGE source of $$ in the search space over the coming years (especially as the "pay for search terms" income levels off).
Assuming this photographic technique works, the question I have is how Google intends to keep it relevant.
It's one thing to photograph all the buildings once, but buildings (or facades) come and go with surprising frequency (think restaurants). Are they going to maintain a fleet of trucks rolling by every month on every city street throughout the US (or world), or is this a one-time snapshot? If the latter, it would be a fun intellectual curiosity, but not something on which you could base your local search product.
I can see the Tenderloin in 3D now...
Are they going to capture all the homeless, drug addicts, and hookers in 3D, too? My cheapass hotel I'm living in?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Here's a sneak preview of an image of the Golden Gate Bridge. LA and Vegas are next.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
wouldn't it be faster to go to a civics office, acquire blueprints and algorithmically build the wire structures, and then remap the pictures?
I'd very much like to get Google Maps Germany. Does anyone know whether that is this in the pipeline?
Google with all their good intentions could also create a big MMORPG in which all city maps are real cities, and gamers can only start in, and own their actual home areas.
Great way to socialize and meet the ladies around.
Until people use the same maps to play UT and CS. You can kill the neighbors cat multiple times then.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I've been talking about this for years, literally, since the first maps came out on the internet. I played duke nukem and then I went to map something on the same day, and I said to myself, why isn't this in 3-D. How hard can that be?
Well, apparently it was too hard for everyone except google. All hail, the mighty google.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
I've been told by Motorola project engineers that SF is the most difficult city in the US to do RF propogation surveys in ( basically wardriving every street in the city measuring uhf and 800 MHz coverage), due to the terrain, stucture and especially the one way streets. A clever person who integrates accurate RF propogation prediction algorithms with this 3D GoogleMap feature could make a pretty penny! (oh wait, Google would C&D them, right ? )
It's good that they picked SF! It's close to their HQ, it's hilly (this'll let 'em test their technology), and the best part, I can use it for 3D modeling (if they ever release it that is!)
-Palal