My Google Map Blog

Google’s “3D Imagery” has finally arrived in the largest city in the United States — New York!

As with other cites that have this new imagery, it looks stunning from the air but looks blocky when you get down low.

In all of the cities we’ve seen so far, flat surfaces like roads simply aren’t flat.  That’s likely due to the fact that streets are covered with vehicles when the imagery is captured, but it makes for poor viewing in Google Earth.  Over time I expect this flaw will be remedied by Google, perhaps when combined with Street View imagery to get better-looking roads and facades.

In fact, the lifelike facades that Google added back in 2010 were one of my favorite features as they made cities really come to life!  New York in particular was absolutely amazing with those facades, as it made it very realistic.  Now those facades are gone and it’s quite a mess when you dive down to street-level view.  As an example, below are two pictures of Times Square using the old and new imagery:

It’s really kind of sad.  However, I see this as being similar to the early days of the digital camera.  Some people laughed at them because they were so inferior to standard cameras in terms of quality, but the technology was the difference and the quality caught up.  Google’s bet seems to be that their techniques for the 3D Imagery will improve over time and make it worthwhile.  Plus, they’re clearly going to keep pushing Street View so I’d be surprised if the two don’t meet up again at some point in the future.  Using the 3D Imagery to create the models and then applying Street View imagery to smooth things out at the ground level could work very well.

For now, enjoy the scenic New York skyline but switch back to “legacy 3D buildings” (under [Tools] –> [Options]) if you want to zoom in close.

The post New York City gets fresh 3D Imagery appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

It’s been a long time coming, but Google Earth Blog has finally made the jump from Movable Type over to WordPress!  With over 3,000 posts (this one is #3005) and more than 17,000 comments, it was quite a migration.  In the end, this move should be good for all of us.  In particular:

New branding

We’ve updated our logo to make it stand out more when you browsing around on line.

Easier Commenting

Comments will now be posted much more quickly, and replies can be threaded.  In addition, you can subscribe to email notifications for follow-up comments on particular posts, making it much easier to keep up with discussions that you’re a part of.

Mobile Responsive

The site is now fully mobile responsive, meaning it should look great on your phone or tablet, as well as your desktop or laptop.  The previous site was mobile compatible, but was cumbersome on handheld devices.

Faster Loading

Everything should load faster and run more smoothly for you.  Of course, we’re still ironing out the kinks after this major transition, so please leave a comment below or contact us if you come across any issues (missing pages, broken links, etc).

Thanks!

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