Welcome 3D Modelers!

[JenMazz]

Dear Mappers,

Today, Google announced the launch of Building Maker -- a new tool to
create 3D buildings in Google Earth. Over time, we're planning on also
representing those 3D buildings in 2.5D on Google Maps, so this is yet
another way for you to enrich the maps of the places you know and
love. See the blog post announcing this new tool here:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html

Building Maker users will be joining the Map Your World community, so
we have a new sub-group for 3D modelers. Our hope is that, over time,
modelers and mappers will collaborate on modeling and mapping their
neighborhoods, cities and countries.

Cheers,

Jen.

[Colin Holgate]

On Oct 13, 2009, at 1:19 PM, JenMazz wrote:

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html

Good grief, that's an amazing development!

One small worry though, are you going into competition with SketchUp, in a way that could diminish SketchUp's perceived value within Google?

Incidentally, the page shows a dialog telling me to download the latest Google Earth plugin, and takes me over to a page where the GE plugin seems to be working, but there is no download option to get the latest one.

[Colin Holgate]

On Oct 13, 2009, at 1:30 PM, Colin Holgate wrote:

> >Incidentally, the page shows a dialog telling me to download the
> latest Google Earth plugin, and takes me over to a page where the GE
> plugin seems to be working, but there is no download option to get
> the latest one.
>

Sigh... I managed to track down the plugin, but now it's installed GE
pages never load. This one for example, that worked perfectly well
before:

http://code.google.com/intl/en/apis/earth/

I've tried Safari and Firefox, no go in either.

[Colin Holgate]

Ok, I made progress. I uninstalled the plugin, which I had installed
for All Users. I reinstalled it just for me. I also downloaded the
latest Google Earth application. Strangely, inside GE the check for
updates feature tells me that I had the latest, but it turns out I
didn't.

So, now I can make buildings! Sadly the city I live in isn't one of
the chosen few. All 25 of the chosen cities have a smaller population
than the one I'm in (it's known locally as Brooklyn), so I can't rush
out an immediately construct the building I live in. Maybe one day
they will get to the bigger cities?

Seriously though, I suspect that it's deemed to be part of NYC, and as
Manhattan is well covered for 3D buildings, who cares about Brooklyn!

I've made a building in Philadelphia instead. The end result doesn't
look exactly right, but at least it didn't take very long.

[momers]

very interesting...and how simple!
i wonder how it will work ofr complex shapes, non rectangular or those
with complex surfaces?

On Oct 13, 11:19 pm, JenMazz <jenmaz...@google.com> wrote:
> Dear Mappers,
>
> Today, Google announced the launch of Building Maker -- a new tool to
> create 3D buildings in Google Earth. Over time, we're planning on also
> representing those 3D buildings in 2.5D on Google Maps, so this is yet
> another way for you to enrich the maps of the places you know and

> love. See the blog post announcing this new tool here:http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-buildin...

[Google Guide Mark]

Building Maker includes several block styles.

The simple Box, the Gable, Hip, Pyramid, Flat top pyramid, and Ramp
roof styles,
and the Vertical freeform block (which allows you to add extra
vertices
as you need them).

If you click on the question-mark (?) in the upper right hand corner
you'll see the
full list, including the keyboard shortcut keys.

Cheers,
mark

[Prateek]

Huh, all I get is "Building Maker is not available for Linux/mobile
devices." (I'm using Linux).

It's disappointing to see that in the "Here are some more things you
should know about Building Maker" points on
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html
, "Building Maker does not run on Linux" was not considered worthy of
mentioning.

In fact, it seems to indicate the opposite: if "Building Maker is an
online tool, and it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome,
Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.)" is true, my operating
system should not matter at all - I'm using Firefox, and this is
supposed to run "entirely in Firefox".

[Keshav]

Hey, they didn't mention about requirement of GE plugin too !

Infact, Building Maker is not a (fully ? / standalone ?) online tool as our favorite online tool Map Maker !  When I tried "Building Maker" on a WinXP PC, it tried to load GoogleEarth plugin - the GoogleEarth browser plugin which lets you see GE in a browser window. 

As "Building Maker" depends on GE plugin and which is not yet available for Linux, Building Maker won't run on a linux machine - even though they call it a "Building Maker is an online tool, and it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.)"

As current version of GoogleEarth silently installs GE plugin, they must have assumed it was no necessary to mention about requirement of GE plugin, but because GE plugin is the reason behind Building Maker not working in Linux, they should have mentioned it in the blog !

Keshav

2009/10/16 Prateek <kprat...@gmail.com>

[Prateek]

BTW, I do have Google Earth installed on my system.

[éptár]

Hi guys.

I tried it, and it is great and funny.
Of course, it does not support for all of cases, but for the simple
models it is a great tool.
I like it...
(sorry if i'm offtopic :-) )

sg.