I just thought I'd share my process with the community to help others
create good or better 3d buildings for Google Earth. It combines the
use of new features for great results.
1. Start in Building Maker / 3d Warehouse (you might want Google Earth
running too!)
If you have both open, you can find a building to start on.
In 3d Warehouse, search for your city then sort by date. This will
help you see the most recent uploads and check if anyone's already
done your building. Also, when you are browsing a model in the
warehouse, the map tab has icons where completed buildings are.
Similarly, the "Viewer" in Building Maker seems to update sooner then
you'd see in Google Earth proper.
So start working on that building! But you need not make it perfect.
You just want a quick placement outline to upload to 3d warehouse. If
you can get all the faces looking good, nice, but if not don't worry
about it, you'll find better textures in the next step anyway.
Starting in Building Maker is just awesome to get the proper building
height without having to look it up manually. So get your building
boxed, upload to 3d warehouse and give a temporary name so people can
see your working on it...
2. Continue into Sketch Up
This can be a little tricky, but the way I've found that works is,
open Google Earth. In GE, navigate to a view of the building your
working on, and frame a good, lined-up direct overhead look at it. Now
open Sketch Up, erase the little guy, and click the "Get Terrain"
button. Now you have the Terrain tile in SketchUp.
So, now make sure you are signed into your Google Account within
SketchUp. Click File> 3dwarehouse> get models... This will give you an
internal browser to sign in. Chose to stay signed in and close that
window.
Now, in Sketch Up, go to "Window" and open the "Components" window. In
the Components window, click the down arrow and select "My models".
You will see the model you just uploaded to 3d warehouse. Click the
thumbnail and it will load into SketchUp. Since you have the accurate
geo-location already loaded, go ahead and select "Choose New Location"
when you are asked if your like to keep building makers location
information. Place the model as well as you can, and you're awesome!
3. Finish with Street View textures!
You now have an accurately sized, geo-located 3d model to edit and
tweak until it's the envy of your fellow Building Makers. You'll be
able to photo texture the faces with the (kinda) new option to "Get
Photo Texture". This brings up an internal street view window in
Sketchup. It's nice, works great, but sometimes you want to zoom out a
little and capture larger textures. In that case, just use the street
view from within Google Earth and a screen capture program to snip the
textures you need. Windows 7 comes with a good screen sniper, but if
you don't have one, I've found Mwsnap to be very handy. So put those
textures on, or use your own photos (or image search) and make that
baby shine!
Then upload to 3d Warehouse like normal, put in a great permanent
description, and delete your temporary model (which should look very
primitive next to the superior model you just sketched up). Wait a
week until Friday, and if it's all good, you'll be thrilled with
happiness that your building has been accepted into Google Earth
proper! I've got 16 models accepted into Google Earth, and still get a
kick out of it.
I find this way, I can create something good in 15 or 20 minutes... It
takes out the tedious task of researching exact building dimensions,
and focuses you on good photo texturing and detail work, right away.
You can see My models, created this way, here
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/doadvsearch?uq=148055652036993...
Have fun!
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