Slashdot Mirror
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)."
All I see is a picture of a large garage. How do we know this is where the truck(s) is (are) kept? And even if the truck were being kept there, what's the big deal? What next: the picture of the garage where a Google programmer parks his car? A menu from a restaurant where Page/Brin ate last month?
I think this is a neat idea, especially if Google opens up all of the data to outside developers (which it has in the past)
Imagine new MMOGs where the cities are real! Or virtual tours of New York, say, before you actually decide to go visit. There are a lot of great possibilities.
I guess you could even plug data like this into a Sim-City-type game, where the virtual city is modeled just like the real one. Sort of gives the term "city planning" a whole new meaning.
I work @ a real estate co. in Boston. We use keyhole, aerial programs such as aerials express, and have pilots fly sites, to zoom in on properties, for sales/leases/whatever.
having a site flown is expensive, can't be done for the number of buildings we are in charge of working with. you can keep prints when you get them, but the photos become old quickly. aerial software is also a great concept - but after even one year, the images are out of date also.
As far as google funding this on its own, I don't think it has to: keyhole is a pretty decent program already, and if they get enough people to buy subscriptions (as we have) they could come up with more funding.
I personally love anything in 3D, and I am trying to get back into the 3D/VFX field. I'd love to see Boston as a 3D fly-through. But especially with the Big Dig, that'll be a few years...
i agree with you. it seems a harrowing undertaking for Google to want to assume. It also seems like something that shop owners and businesses should be responsible for. Google can post requirements for the kinds of photographs, etc, that it needs. Or it can generate a side business. Laser Photographers certified by Google to take the right scans/images for the map project.
It just doesn't make sense for google to brute force this. Too costly and extensive and time consuming. I do disagree about them having the resources though. Seen their stock price lately?
Re: money pit. companies regularly throw money away to prevent smaller companies from getting footholds. I actually think that it hasn't been made a bigger point that google has employed many strategies typically considered evil when followed by microsoft. They find small companies and buy them out, borg-style. They crush other innovators by using the search monopoly to gain a foothold in other services. I don't know if anyone's posted how Google will be launching a pay service to compete with Paypal, but they apparently plan on doing so. I'm sure that means that they'll be going into the online auction space. They also plan to launch a Craigslist-type service.
*shrugs*
un burrito me trampeó.
The best use of these maps would be load them into a racing game and allow you to race around the city of your choice.
This picture is a complete joke. It's a picture of the shared Stanford Solar Car & DARPA Grand Challenge site on 180 Stock Farm Rd, Stanford CA 94305.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Has no one looked closely at the picture. The opening of the garage is an OBVIOUS photoshop addon. I've seen pr0n that was better hacked together.
Comment removed based on user account deletion