Google Earth has been updated (now has 3D views, tours and more) - Sensationalist Headlines

[video=youtube;O-XidwKsKAE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-XidwKsKAE[/video] [QUOTE]The whole world is now in your browser. Fly through landmarks and cities like London, Tokyo and Rome in stunning 3D, then dive in to experience them first hand with Street View. See the world from a new point of view with Voyager, which brings you stories from the BBC, NASA, Sesame Street and more. Choose your own adventure with Voyager Experience interactive stories from around the world. Discover new places with Knowledge Cards Flip through cards and learn about local landmarks. Orbit the world in 3D Use the new 3D button to tilt the map. Snap and share a Postcard Capture snapshots of locations and share them with your friends. Feeling Lucky? Roll the dice and see where the world takes you.[/QUOTE] [URL]https://www.google.com/intl/de/earth/[/URL]

Hasn't 3D been in for a while? Truly remarkable where it is supported anyways. Planning a bicycle trip in France this summer, great to see all the mountains/paths/forests etc in 3D.

First thing I did was go to Antarctica and spot the shitty pole seams. Still there!

I thought they might've improved the graphics from the trailer, but I seriously can't see a difference on the website. Was that all CGI or is mine bugged?

Seeing my hometown rendered like that is pretty neat

Seems more like they're reintroducing features they've had for years, other than those info cards I guess.

[QUOTE=Mango;52124251]Hasn't 3D been in for a while? Truly remarkable where it is supported anyways. Planning a bicycle trip in France this summer, great to see all the mountains/paths/forests etc in 3D.[/QUOTE] Looks like this is a new version that only works in Chrome. I wonder if there's actually a technical reason for that, though.

Google Earth is one of my favourite video games. Very interesting too.

[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;52124269]I thought they might've improved the graphics from the trailer, but I seriously can't see a difference on the website. Was that all CGI or is mine bugged?[/QUOTE] It will have been pre-rendered. Real time looks pretty shitty, but you can't really blame them. It's a shit ton of data. [editline]19th April 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Loadingue;52124284]Google Earth is one of my favourite video games. Very interesting too.[/QUOTE] I actually do load up the Google Earth desktop program every now and then to have a look around. With the Wikipedia layer enabled it's really absorbing.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;52124276]Looks like this is a new version that only works in Chrome. I wonder if there's actually a technical reason for that, though.[/QUOTE] Well it's doesn't even work in chrome, so how do you expect them to get it working on other browsers? [t]http://i.imgur.com/IY7InGS.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/09OBbhj.jpg[/t] Jokes aside, at the very least it requires custom elements, which are only supported by chrome and opera right now.

Oh wow that is extremely cool, super interesting to fly around places I know in 3D. Seems like they haven't added data for every part of the world though, my hometown is still flat :(

[QUOTE=Wormy;52124274]It doesn't look as impressive for me either when I check. Literally looks like this. I have seen better 3D renders of cities before, this is pretty disappointing. [t]http://i.imgur.com/nHdnAZf.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] I'd say that for 3D renders of pretty much every major metropolitan area in the entire world, based on satellite data, they're pretty damned good [t]http://i.imgur.com/bjj9NhQ.jpg[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/ZrFIW93.jpg[/t] Topology's also spot-on [t]http://i.imgur.com/nGvGWTB.jpg[/t]

Anybody know how the 3D actually works? It looks organic enough that I'd guess they use sensors on Streetview cars to capture depth information, rebuild a 3D scene around the car and automatically map the photographed textures onto the scene.

[QUOTE=Maloof?;52124331]Anybody know how the 3D actually works? It looks organic enough that I'd guess they use sensors on Streetview cars to capture depth information, rebuild a 3D scene around the car and automatically map the photographed textures onto the scene.[/QUOTE] As far as I know, they take photos from the air and use some kind of algorithm to compare the photos and generate 3D models from them. [url]https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2012/06/google_announces_upcoming_3d.html[/url] [QUOTE=Mrfantasticool;52124318]Oh wow that is extremely cool, super interesting to fly around places I know in 3D. Seems like they haven't added data for every part of the world though, my hometown is still flat :([/QUOTE] [URL=https://www.gearthblog.com/kmfiles/3DMeshLocationsNetworkLink.kml]Here's[/URL] a KML file that shows areas that are 3D mapped, and when they were added. Source: [url]https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/09/google-earth-automatically-generated-3d-mesh.html[/url] None of this seems actually new? But hey, if people who didn't know about it are finding out about the 3D feature now, that's awesome. It has been blowing my mind every time for years now, especially now that Google Earth VR exists as well. I hope some day the whole world will be mapped, and that it can eventually be incorporated into games.

[QUOTE=ultradude25;52124309][...] Jokes aside, at the very least it requires custom elements, which are only supported by chrome and opera right now.[/QUOTE] It seems to use custom elements and the Shadow DOM via [URL="https://www.polymer-project.org/"]Polyme[/URL][URL="https://archive.is/IpoEQ"]r[/URL], but that's [URL="https://www.polymer-project.org/2.0/docs/browsers"]seemingly polyfillable on all major browsers[/URL][URL="https://archive.is/ChUoj"].[/URL] If I'm not mistaken, they could just drop in a few more JS files for Firefox users and have it work.

[QUOTE=Wormy;52124274]It doesn't look as impressive for me either when I check. Literally looks like this. I have seen better 3D renders of cities before, this is pretty disappointing. [t]http://i.imgur.com/nHdnAZf.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] What are you expecting, a photograph?

Was dicking about in this last night. Even my local city (Albany NY) was included in that weird 3d auto-generated memery. Definitely works much better on square buildings and huge notable ones than small ones. The thing that absolutely nukes my mind is how tiny some of the 3d modeled things are (however low poly). There's a powerplant south of Albany and even some flat-to-the-ground (as in, not in a pyramid layout) pipes got some degree of modelling! Some shots I took yesterday of the local area: [t]http://i.imgur.com/NOsDYDE.png[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/T4csDyM.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/yw4rvB0.png[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/skpw9fD.png[/t] ^It even tried (and somewhat succeeded!) at mapping that billboard. ^There's a weird pseudo street view option thing that's really cool. [t]http://i.imgur.com/dq455LN.png[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/iHtCQzW.png[/t] It feels like a lower poly slightly shittier version of Cities: Skylines or something and it's awesome! [sp] Do note: Model quality is absolutely all over the place. Some areas and certain kinds of objects such as industrial buildings render immaculately while trees, thin objects like poles, and other organic shapes are near aids tier.[/sp]

I've always felt that it would be cool if Google called it Google's Earth, like it serves as a milestone of their progress in documenting the entire structure of the outside of our planet but also as a company. "How's your earth coming along?" "Pretty good!" I dunno. I'm silly.

[QUOTE=Wormy;52124370]Not really, was just hoping for the mesh to be a little more accurate with less artifacts. It makes sense that they had to compress the data, but the trailer made me think it would look better.[/QUOTE] It really depends on what you're looking at. In my local area it seems like it really really likes industrial buildings and large square buildings like malls and colleges. Organic shapes like trees, round things, poles, etc. are kinda a shitshow. (And even then, it varies by area.)

[t]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/179908939083677696/304237759076499456/unknown.png[/t] It can show a street view availability map. As you can see, we're pretty privacy-conscious here.

My past three hometowns: [t]http://i.imgur.com/pLMMfz3.jpg[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/V0pec7K.jpg[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/pSlivDJ.jpg[/t] Ehh, 1 out of 3 is alright I guess

The 3D looks exactly like what it has looked like for many years now. The only difference is the UI as far as I can tell. Google Maps has had the same 3D cities, with what looks like the same renderer to me, for ages now. The 3D data is not captured by streetview cars by the way. Graz doesn't have streetview, but is completely 3D, while Dubai has streetview, but isn't 3D.

[QUOTE=Wormy;52124274]It doesn't look as impressive for me either when I check. Literally looks like this. I have seen better 3D renders of cities before, this is pretty disappointing. [t]http://i.imgur.com/nHdnAZf.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] did your hometown get bombed

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;52124335]As far as I know, they take photos from the air and use some kind of algorithm to compare the photos and generate 3D models from them. [url]https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2012/06/google_announces_upcoming_3d.html[/url] [URL=https://www.gearthblog.com/kmfiles/3DMeshLocationsNetworkLink.kml]Here's[/URL] a KML file that shows areas that are 3D mapped, and when they were added. Source: [url]https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/09/google-earth-automatically-generated-3d-mesh.html[/url] None of this seems actually new? But hey, if people who didn't know about it are finding out about the 3D feature now, that's awesome. It has been blowing my mind every time for years now, especially now that Google Earth VR exists as well. I hope some day the whole world will be mapped, and that it can eventually be incorporated into games.[/QUOTE] If they really wanted to go full ham, they could utelize Synthetic Aperature Radar which would give sub-meter accuracy (i.e. This volcano as scanned from the Shuttle): [IMG_THUMB]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/TEIDE.JPG[/IMG_THUMB]

i tried looking at north korea in 3d [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/nm7mdLW.jpg[/IMG] man, i knew they painted the buildings just to make themselves look good!

[QUOTE=Robber;52124467]The 3D looks exactly like what it has looked like for many years now. The only difference is the UI as far as I can tell. Google Maps has had the same 3D cities, with what looks like the same renderer to me, for ages now. The 3D data is not captured by streetview cars by the way. Graz doesn't have streetview, but is completely 3D, while Dubai has streetview, but isn't 3D.[/QUOTE] While visually and pretty much feature-wise it is the same as google maps, the performance is far better. I get a solid 60 FPS in a 3D city in earth, but more like 20 on maps, plus the actual map and 3D terrain load in faster, which I had always assumed was a bandwidth limitation. Perhaps earth just has better caching.

Wow, this is pretty cool. My city looks pretty decent on this. [t]http://i.imgur.com/7DYFfZZ.jpg[/t] Where I used to live looks like a bunch of circles. [t]http://i.imgur.com/9WcXqcl.jpg[/t] Feel free to count them.

My town still flat as a rock, lame.

[QUOTE=TheMrFailz;52124367]pics[/QUOTE] From using google maps/earth extensively for work, these are all features that've been there for years. My guess is they simply redid the UI/UX, added that voyager feature, and probably 3d-mapped more areas.

[QUOTE=TheDrunkenOne;52124509]i tried looking at north korea in 3d [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/nm7mdLW.jpg[/IMG] man, i knew they painted the buildings just to make themselves look good![/QUOTE] Confirmed, Kim's worse than Hitler