Slashdot Mirror
Reconstructing Real Cities in Google Earth
An anonymous reader writes "NewScientistTech has an article up on the way 3D models of real cities are being uploaded into Google Earth to help town planners and architects envisage their designs. Researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed a method for rapidly mapping building, which they are using to reconstruct the rapidly-expanding town of Fayetteville. The researchers say tools like Google Earth and Sketchup could eventually help ordinary citizens get more involved in urban development."
NewScientistTech has an article up on the way 3D models of real cities are being uploaded into Google Earth to help town planners and architects envisage their designs.
That sounds like it would be good if you wanted to, say, judge building altitude and approach angle for flying a plan^^#$@%^^^^NOCARRIER
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This explains the total lack of right turn lanes throughout my entire city!
I saw this at the last Star Trek convention (In vegas) they would let anyone sit and play at their booth. it was really fun... and the booth babes where hot!
"Trained urban planners often don't get a seat at the development table; what makes you think local governments would care about what ordinary laypeople think?"
Most urban planners do get their wishes through the city planners/council, wether through political favors or just plain bribes. However, in our city, I do know of one person who is using SketchUp to design a massive upgrade to a main corridor _in_ our city. He was using this feature before it has received the press it's been getting as of late. All of his models were being seriously considered and using an ArchiCad plugin, they can take the SketchUp models and estimate how much the material cost will be.
What it really takes are open minds to commit to a better future. If pre-visualization from anyone with a good idea can give that good idea to another, politics aside, people can see improvements faster than ever.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
I don't get it, isn't this already called SimCity?
Even with these great tools (and believe me I myself love this),I think the underlying problems willnot change.
1. Just because we can doesn't mean we will.
We have had out feet and a telephone for quite a while now but ordinary citizens rarely make it to town council meetings let a lone make a call to voice their opinion.
and, 2. Even if they did, since when to the politicians ever really listening to their constituants.
Hope this post wasn't too much of a downer. Have a great day.
___________________________
Free iPods? Its legit. 5 of my friends got theirs. Get yours here!
The researchers say tools like Google Earth and Sketchup could eventually help ordinary citizens get more involved in urban development.
It could help ordinary suicide bombers get more involved with urban demolition
Yeah, I saw a yard gnome once, it didn't scare me - Space Ghost
I've been hoping for awhile that Google Earth would add a scroll-wheel doohickey that would allow the user to scroll backwards and forwards in time, and that Google would stitch in old/new image data as needed.
Kinda like watching SimCity, but with real roads and buildings...
.... I better be able to stick people alone in a 1ft. x 1ft. shack with fireworks in this game too.
In Soviet Russia these Soviet Russia jokes aren't considered the least bit amusing...
I think ordinary citizens are too busy playing SimCity to get involved with this. This software won't have a chance against SimCity until they implement some decent disasters (Tornado, Nuclear Meltdown, Godzilla) that the user can unleash upon the city while laughing.
Urban planning is simply too boring otherwise!
"...help ordinary citizens get more involved in urban development."
So which is it? Seems like they're just playing around and making grandoise statements. I can see how this might be one tool for planners and architects (as if the don't already do this sort of thing), but give me a break -- helping ordinary citizens get involved in urban development? I sure hope not. I'd rather have intelligent people propose good designs. Move along, nothing to see here.
The aerial view will ensure that they don't put up anything that looks bad from our flying cars. Oh, wait...
Now if there was only a way to import this information into my SimCity game. Or any other Sim franchise game. Hell, any game, for that matter.
to welcome our new 3d overlords
Beer! It's not just for breakfast anymore!.
They have universities in Arkansas?
Who woulda guessed?
1. Developer proposes project
2. Developer lines pockets of local authorities
3. Local authorities approve project
4. Developer builds project
5. $$ Profit!
6. Local authorities stick it to existing taxpayers to fund infrastructure upgrades that should have been paid for by developer
So yeah, getting ordinary citizens involved in the development process might be a good thing instead of just bending over for the developers. Problem is, the oridinary citizens are already to busy watching American Idol or whatever pap is on this week to ever do it.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
but I really don't believe it.
We just had a developer come in and build an apartment complex next to a mature neighborhood. Imagine that one day you have trees outside your house, and the next day you have a five-storey building.
We photoshopped a representation of what the apartment complex would do to the trees, and presented it to the DeKalb County (GA) commissioners, but it made no difference. I think they could see the added tax revenue to the county, and gave not a damn about the existing houses.
I wasn't personally affected - it was a number of my neighbors at the other end of the neighborhood, but I did learn that tools and the ability to predict impact don't really matter. What really matters is money to the local taxing authority.
Just sayin'.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Such a tool, I think, would be useful for evaluating the impact of proposed structures on viewscapes. Traditionally, urban planners and citizens have ignored the effect of what they do on viewscapes, hence the huge hotels that block residents' view of the ocean, for instance. In that sense, this is a hopeful development. On the other hand, a big part of the reason we haven't done a good job of analysing the impact on viewscapes is because people haven't been paying any attention to viewscapes, largely, until it's too late. On balance, I think this is a good idea but I'm not convinced it will make much difference in the medium-term. It IS nice marketing hype, though :-)
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
I started using sketchup a while back for the geekiest of all possible reasons: creating and displaying models of places for a roleplaying game I was running.
(This is actually a surprisingly hard problem, which no other tools solve well. You need do deal with there being a complex model that already exists, but of which only a dynamic section is actually visible to players. Navigating an actual 3d model gives you the ability to convey great detail quickly, without ever having to worry about giving away too much. The players see exactly what they characters see, and you can get on with the actual game.)
So I started to place the locations that I'd modeled into Seattle (yes, Shadowrun), and was pleased to find that a lot of Seattle was already modeled in Earth, with yet more available in the google "3D Warehouse". It's basically the classic free software development model: everyone in the community works on something they find interesting, and we all benefit from one another's products.
"The researchers say tools like Google Earth and Sketchup could eventually help ordinary citizens get more involved in urban development."
More likely, municipal planners will get innundated with city maps full of 3D building models that look like giant penises, submitted by ordinary citizens of the 14-year-old variety.
Let me know when I can play a FPS in my hometown, online. Now that would be cool. It is something that I have thought for years would be the just great. You could hide out in your own house, or camp on your school roof, hell the home team would actually have an advantage! Anyway software developers your on notice! Build me this and I will buy it! Hmmm of course the Jack Thompson (or whatever his name is) would have a field day about a FPS in a actual real school (even though virtural) online....
I beg to differ. I'm an architect, I probably sit on a DRC meeting at least once a month. Most staff level planners are required to approve proposed designs prior to commission approval. Google earth has become one of the most revalutionary tools to date. Allowing simple arial evaluations of sites without having to leave the office. Most City GIS systems include arial photography mostly used for code enforcement. But from an architects stand point this is very usefull when presenting issues such as vertical relationships, shadowing and such.
I am curious when features liek this will reach more rural towns, and how much goolgle will allow us to intigrate there layout into 3d sfotware such as Vis, or Revit.
At the architectural firm I used to work for, I had shown Google Earth to the principals and told them to keep it in mind for future proposals. A couple months later I was asked to composite some renderings into Google Earth for a proposal for a new facility at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was cool...I was able to drop the site plans directly onto the existing site. The renderings also had arrows indicating traffic flow, so I made the site plans into .PNGs and Google Earth recognized the transparency channel so the arrows were floating over the existing roads instead of over a white backgroud. I'm probably not describing this well, but the end result looked great and we won the project.
I doubt there are any commercial simulations of the metropolitan possibilities of Fayetteville Arkansas.
Trained urban planners often don't get a seat at the development table; what makes you think local governments would care about what ordinary laypeople think?
I think the correct answer is that they won't care what they think. But they might care about what they can show them in a 3D or 2 dimensional model. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 3d picture that you can "fly" through is at least worth a thousand and one words.
how long before someone takes this and makes a jell-o mold of the city?
A developer gets recreational land rezoned as residential to put in a slew of houses (this happened down the street from me, albeit before I moved in). Tax base goes up, politicians get donations, everyone is excited... except the neighbors whose house is no longer down the street from a country club with a pool and instead has more houses... After a 5 year fight, the compromise is a rezone on half, and the other half becomes a park... everyone is somewhat happy (still having recreational features, although less than before, but now free), and developers make money, just not what they would if they could have used ALL the land. The new road is a non-issue, because they did it private so it could be gated... Now I am a supporter of property rights, but when the original neighborhood was built, the recreational use was part of "the deal" via zoning, so letting someone rezone in this case devalues everyone else, so they should get compensation, which the new park essentially is.
Maintaining those resources is now the city's burden, but it has the tax base to support it from the new houses, no problem. Now the city needs to run sewage, water, and other lines there... who should pay for that? Should the city pay for that to make the land more valuable for the developers, or should the developers pay for it as part of the rezone? Of course the costs get passed on to the buyers (although, in reality not entirely, i.e. if the person would pay $500k before, they aren't going to pay $525k for the same house just because the builder's costs went up)... in many ways, these costs get eaten by the developer, because they charge the owners whatever the market will pay, not cost + profit. Now, it is possible that these costs would make some development projects unprofitable as a result (increases costs cuts the supply curve raises prices and lowers quantities, not just increases prices).
I agree that once a part of the city, the new home owners are the same as everyone else, otherwise, it is pulling up the ladder. But ultimately, the "first citizens" had to pay for the roll-out of facilities through their taxes, and whenever someone buys that person's house, you implicitly paid for it because the value of the house in part includes those resources.
The anti-capitalist bent on Slashdot is a bit silly, as is the NIMBYism hidden in the anti-developer garbage. However, it's not clear to me that running sewage, water, electricity, and roads to a new location should be the city's responsibility, taxing existing tax-payers for services that they don't use doesn't seem right. I agree that once they move in they are equal, I'm just not sure why citizens 1-100 that already paid for the resources that they use (explicitly or implicitly) to pay for citizens 101-105 to move in seems fair, versus citizens 101-105 pay their startup costs...
Remember, you claim that developers pass it along to first owners (I don't agree that it is a 100% pass-through), in which case the owners are implicitly paying for it, same as all the other home owners. In fact, these new owners get a discount, because they only pay the marginal costs... if you argued that they should pay 5% of the existing sewage system's costs, I'd say you stepped over the line.
Now, this is all BS, because capital improvements are paid via bond issues, and therefore NOT paid by current tax payers, but future tax payers, including the new ones. However, I still think that marginal costs to the city should be paid for by the developers, and therefore cut into potential profits but not have the city subsidize developers.
Alex
For those who think "Why Fayetteville?"
Fayetteville happens to be one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and JB Hunt are all in the larger metropolitan area. The commercial infrastructure here has exploded in the last decade.
When people hear Arkansas they think of L'il Abner and the like, but the area that Fayetteville is in is nothing like the rest of the state. The population has a higher per-capita income, more education and less crime. Think Seattle, except smaller and with less rain.
And, btw, the picture in the article is looking to the East down Dickson Street, and the real view looks nothing like that.
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from Mediocre Minds - A. Einstein
"You misspelled "urban planners"; I believe the correct spelling is "well-heeled developers"."
Apparently you spelled "chronic cynicism" correctly.
that were rejected by the /. editors :-)
.dae caching and fixed refreshing. Now you can create simple "animations" with "moving" 3d objects using Update kml tag. P.S. To avoid problems with flickering mouse cursor uninstall your old GE before installing new one." Update: 09/14 13:49 GMT by S : The Google Earth Blog offers additional information including: "doing a "Check for Update" in the application will NOT get you the new version - you have to download from Google as if it were your first time for GE 4". Read Ogle Earth on the release too.
[ok, I'm too lazy, here's a direct copy of slashgeo's stories]
Following yesterday stories, izo writes "It's here. Fresh, crispy and shiny — Google Earth ver 4.0.2080 . There is new timeline interface and few new kml tags. [Although there is no demo to test it] My personal winner with this release is
Ogle Earth was the first to share the news about today's major content update for Google Earth. OE links to a ZDNet article. While the Google Earth Blog tells us about the addition of 3D buildings in cities all over Japan. From the article: "Google Earth will include before and after satellite images of environmentally endangered locations originally published by the U.N. Environment Program as a coffee-table book." and from the Ogle Earth blog: "New stuff in the "Featured content" folder in the Layers sidebar. Some of it's been there for a while, but brand new is a layer by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), a layer by the US National Park service, and expanded global content by the Discovery Channel."
All Points Blog links to a ZDNet article where we learn the time tracking tool in Google Earth Pro will now be available in Google Earth Free (and GE Plus, of course!). From the article: "The feature in which a slider is used to scroll through time [...] now features a simplified interface. [...] showing how scientists, who had tracked the movements of a whale shark using GPS, had then mapped the creature's path using the application. Business uses could include fleet tracking or mapping the movements of transport infrastructure according to Google. Jones also described how the new version would enable users to track all of the geostationary satellites orbiting the earth." Ed Parsons was first to mention this news item.
The Google earth Blog attempts to summarize the September 8th major satellite/photo imagery update for Google Maps and Google Earth.
Animoog.org
Really.
This slashgeo.org story:
All Points Blog links to a ZDNet article where we learn the time tracking tool in Google Earth Pro will now be available in Google Earth Free (and GE Plus, of course!). From the article: "The feature in which a slider is used to scroll through time [...] now features a simplified interface. [...] showing how scientists, who had tracked the movements of a whale shark using GPS, had then mapped the creature's path using the application. Business uses could include fleet tracking or mapping the movements of transport infrastructure according to Google. Jones also described how the new version would enable users to track all of the geostationary satellites orbiting the earth." Ed Parsons was first to mention this news item.
And yes, it does also work with SketchUp buildings. Meaning you can scroll through time and watch buildings evoluate. Some published KML demonstrate this.
Animoog.org
For anyone who ahs trouble driving around metropolitan areas this would be awsome! You can take a look at the buildings if you were driving around. So I could see what I should expect to see when I'm driving up to said building, instead of trying to infer what the place looks like from the roof. I wonder if you can move the camera to capture city vistas without actually having to trek out there.
Disclaimer: I am an urban planner. One of the things these free tools do is raise the expectations bar. Most planning departments have had access for many years to GIS tools which are far more capable than what the online tools can do. That said, the general public has not. I do not think that "ordinary citizens will get more involved" - I have been to enough public meetings to know what citizen apathy looks like - but I do think that the public's perception of what is possible in terms of visualization and presentation will change. Think CSI - doesn't every crime lab work that way? In terms of participation, there will still be the controvertial cases where city hall is packed with angry citizens reacting to the "greedy developer" coming to the city to "destroy the quality of life" or "make traffic a nightmare" but for the most part people have lives and do not care about local government unless it is a basic utility like water service, fire or police protection. When they do get involved, however, they will expect to see zooming and fly-throughs using aerial photos. I love the digital orthophotography but this stuff is expensive and not everyplace is covered.
my cube has a window...
we need to start an architects spelling/grammar improvement fund.
lastly i wouldnt say lack of urban planners is the problem, but zoneing regulations that encourage bland buildings.. ...color cannot be over this or that value on munsell. only this/that material etc. many designers have their brains freeze at 200+ pages of regs and just follow the lists... it is unfortunate.
always mosh clockwise
Simcity: Google Earth Edition
How cool would it be to drive across the world in a Ferrari. It better have inside the car driving modes.
God spoke to me.
While the virtual Fayetteville is cool, it's kinda late to the party. This is exactly what my software is used for, and we even already support Google Earth, NASA WorldWind, VRML, VTP and more. The nice thing being, unlike SketchUp, we author to many formats, not just KML, so you can reuse the same scene in numerous environments and you're not locked in.
9 o n-Selbyn i
http://3dnature.com/scene.html
http://3dnature.com/kml.html
Here's a heapload of links about this sort of thing done by my users over the past few years. Some of this is realtime (Google Earth or our NatureView Express viewer) and some of it is pre-rendered to still images, AVIs or Quicktime (similar to something like Blender or POVRay).
http://3dnature.com/images/DUQueryPhoto.jpg
http://3dnature.com/images/NVE-Interlocken.jpg
http://3dnature.com/images/FairplayPowerPlant.jpg
http://3dnature.com/images/Fairplay-WW-large.jpg
http://redgeographics.com/sample_apeldoorn_3d.php
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=FAhl
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=JBailey
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=MBoyer
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=KBried%E
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=GDonalds
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=MGualdri
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=RLovel
http://www.3dnworld.com/gallery.php?user=MOstrom
And plenty more like it.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
They just need giant 3D printers - or maybe an enlarging ray instead... :D
When we have real-time feeds, we'll be able to map geo-relevant information info onto Google Earth:
Like weather, traffic jams, tornado locations, animal migrations, polar ice levels, progress building a dam, maybe even someday jetting between the different football stadiums on Sunday morning to watch the different football games live in 3D VR.
TED: I need bigger tubes into my home.
That's this would be good for.
I've met a lot of people who want historical or evironmental views of their region.
In the UK, local authorities can grant planning permissions - motorways, supermarkets etc. Using Google Maps would be ideal for this, rather than the PDF files with their itty-bitty descriptions they have now. You could actually *see* which bit of countryside they were going to concrete over.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Dude, you should come to my country. I don't know if our urban designers are just completely retarded or sadistic perverts.
Right here.
Animoog.org
I agree with you, in theory, about zoning. On the other-hand, there is a massive externality issue involved. For example, if you prop unregulated low income housing, slum style, into a neighborhood, you will cause MAJOR negative externalizes in the surrounding communities. If I own a peace of land with a view of the ocean (theoretical house, 2 stories), and someone buys the land in front of me (currently 1 story), and puts up a 3 story building, I lose my view. This is a negative to me. Restricting the owner from doing so is a negative to them, devaluing their property rights.
Zoning is a bit of a compromise, I can buy my theoretical house, knowing that that lot is only zoned for 1 story (so the view is factored into my house). If it is zoned for three stories, then I take a risk.
I'm not anti-development, but I think that externalities need to be considered. In the case of my neighborhood, the original developer zoned it recreational with the city to get cheaper tax rates and operate a country club in the community. Country-club living (living near the club, where you play golf, tennis, and swim without the "public" being there like at a part), was very big in suburban South Florida in the 70s. It was a combination of community separation (upper middle class white people hanging out with their kind), plus how society was for young families then. Now, the trend went to private pools and public tennis courts in the 80s, and continued in the 90s. The country club society crumbled as South Florida stopped being retirees and their wealthy doctors/lawyers and into a real economy with dual incomes and stressed families.
However, the neighbors bought their house from the developer (or the previous owners, but essentially from the developer), with the understanding that the developer set up the country club as a recreation facility. Most houses in our neighborhood within 2 blocks of the old club have no pool, including massive houses that you would expect to have a pool in Florida, unless they were build 10+ years later when private pools were the rage.
Should the developer/new owner of the country club, that has received 30 years of subsidized taxes, and premium prices for pool-less homes 30 years earlier by providing a swimming pool, be allowed to say, okay, I already cashed in on that part, just build the last handful of unbuilt lots (in the 90s, and away they went to rezone it and cash in after the run-up).
In all fairness, the zoning is essentially a deed restriction. If you zone something a certain way to create more value (like they did), removing that value without compensation to the people who paid you a premium for that value (or their successors) seems just as unfair as arbitrary zoning restrictions.