More Info on Google's 3D Maps

Will Stewart writes "You have doubtless read that Silicon Valley Watcher reported on 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, but you may not have seen the picture of where the trucks are kept and Berkeley's unrelated research project and published technical research (PDF file)."

Comments

Re:Here's a thought....

[Cat_Byte]

I'm not so sure I'd want my house in 3-D available thru google maps...

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

If you see the google truck coming make sure you moon them as they go by. It would make a nice "easter egg" for google maps ;)

Re:Picture of the actual 3D images?

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Yes, here

photograph crime in progress?

[BoneOfconTroll]

Anyone found one of them yet? In Amazon's versions, you can see motorcyclic keep pace along Gough street, of "go getter pizza", in San Fran (the first hit for pizza). http://www.amazon.com/gp/yp/B0004B4KH4/103-1660600 -5419803 I wonder what has has been seen.

more pictures please

[GreasyBloater]

Can someone please acquire photos of the following items:

- gas station used to fuel the trucks
- hose used to clean the trucks
- steel drums containing the trucks used oil

These would be most (snort) valuable for my collection. (snort)

Re:What I would like to know is...

[LiquidCoooled]

You need to invest in some new t-shirts:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /

.jpg already /.ed -- here's a lo-res mirror though

[PeeAitchPee]

and also for our Lynx-using folks . . .

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Re:Picture of the actual 3D images?

[mwood]

Wow, it's dangerous enough having people taking snapshots of famous bridges. Now we've got trucks with frickin' laser beams on their heads aiming at the Golden Gate! That's just *gotta* be terrorists. :-)

Will Google Map the Oceans too?

[CrazyJim1]

I think its a safe bet that they'll opt for mounting lazer beams on sharks.

Re:Will Google Map the Oceans too?

[rbarreira]

Someone either didn't notice the subject, or likes to spend a lot of keystrokes trolling :)

Do no evil

[kramerino]

I believe the actual quote from the google spokesperson was "We're going to build trucks equipped with frickin' lasers on top of their heads."

Re:Some more info

[Obiwan Kenobi]

"Screenshots really can't capture how amazing it is to freely move around a 3D world."

Yeah, I tell you what though, I do this every day and it's the shit.

Best videogame, EVAR!

[chaboud]

Seriously, this sort of data collection could lead to:

A) Awesome video games
B) Large questions about privacy when Google scans you in your house
C) Really awesome video games

No, that's the Stanford Grand Challenge vehicle

[Animats]

That's not the Google mapping truck. That's Stanford's entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge,, which is a Volkswagen Touareg with a bunch of SICK laser line scanners mounted on a roof rack. The scanners all face generally forward and down, which is right for automatic driving but wrong for city modelling.

Those old Quonset huts are on Stock Farm Road near Campus Drive. The Stanford Solar Car project and the Grand Challenge team use them.

Re:E&S

[cosmic_0x526179]

There must be something clever/neat/subversive, er special, about the google truck. I bet it has a terrorist sensor.

Right. Combine that with the face recognition software that the Tampa PD uses (used ?) and the real story here is that the google trucks are cruising the Castro looking for Usama Bin Laden and his buddy Omar. Any minute now HSD will announce the capture of the terrible twosome at an undisclosed location

Remember, you heard it here first.