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)."
Are there any public screenshots available yet of what it's going to look like? I understand the basic principles of what they're going to do, but it's still a little hard to envision what the end result is going to look like.
see a Text Widget
To avoid loads of db queries and ads, the actual (rather uninteresting) picture is:
o ogleGarage.jpg
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/G
http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/
Well, their picture looks like a giant Anderson Shelter
Are their competitors likely to try and bomb the truck?
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
I call BS. That looks like any one of a thousand quonset huts on Camp Pendleton and other Marine Corps bases. How do I know that it isn't a picture of one of them?
Also - wow, who cares.
Derek Greene
Some related info:
...
More on Google 3D maps
3D Buildings
Lets start with the big things first. On selected US cities, you can view a grey scale 3D rendering of the city skyline. Pictures are worth more then words so I'll let the screenshots do the talking.
This was in Keyhole but it's still amazing. Screenshots really can't capture how amazing it is to freely move around a 3D world.
Amazon's "Blockview"
The most powerful technology A9.com invented for Yellow Pages is "Block View," which brings the Yellow Pages to life by showing a street view of millions of businesses and their surroundings. Using trucks equipped with digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, and proprietary software and hardware, A9.com drove tens of thousands of miles capturing images and matching them with businesses and the way they look from the street.
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?
Won't they capture 3d shots of people walking past or standing around?
Does the software only account for 3d structures over a certain size?
liqbase
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
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
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.
I don't want to sell you death sticks.
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.
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)
You need to invest in some new t-shirts:
/
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow:
liqbase
I understand this sentiment. I also acknowledge that a company which has reached Google's size needs to diversify their pursuits and offerings to keep constant revenue streams and stay afloat.
It's the reason Microsoft is engaging in as many industries as it is. Same goes for IBM, or Sun, or any other huge player in the IT world. It's diversify or die in this economy. At least Google is making some attempt to make a useful service (if they can get it off the ground) in the process, rather than spam us with junk hardware, overpriced servers and OS'es, and the like.
The Crimson Dragon
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...
and also for our Lynx-using folks . . .
()--
|
-------
| | |
========
0 0
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.
This would be awesome to integrate for Midtown Madness maps, especially when your own city gets added.
Regardless, being able to "drive through" from car perspective would seem like a great way to learn your way around a town.
I think its a safe bet that they'll opt for mounting lazer beams on sharks.
God spoke to me.
reference: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2003/08/31/MN305247.DTL
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.
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."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All of your ideas are great ones and can be acomplished with Google Maps right now, plus a little work.
r owse_frm/thread/a6ff645e0cc619c7/78d99f027d95aa1b# 78d99f027d95aa1bthis thread at google groups about drawing custom trails.
1) Your elevation idea is very good. Elevation data can be found from the USGS website and others. Plot it on the map with different colored "pins" representing the different heights and you've got yourself a topo map.
2) Downloading GPS tracks has also already been done. I can't find the URL right now, but someone has done it. Check out http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Google-Maps/b
3) Downloading the route to GPS also sounds like something that could be done quite easily, as the route data from a driving directions request is returned as pairs of latitude and longitude decimals (in XML, too). Parse the latitude and longitude data into waypoints for your GPS unit and voila, you have yourself handheld driving directions!
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
Those old Quonset huts are on Stock Farm Road near Campus Drive. The Stanford Solar Car project and the Grand Challenge team use them.
No, not "until recently". Those huts ARE the Stanford Solar Car Project huts. I worked on it while I was in school there, and was over there less than a week ago helping them get ready for the North American Solar Challenge. There is no "secret" Google mapping truck hidden there. The only thing that is there other than the solar car is Stanford's entry into the DARPA Grand Challenge. As a side note, those buildings also aren't 65 years old. They were built in the 60's to house an operations workshop.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss