Google Earth Archives - Digital Urban

3D London: Google Earth

Andy — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:57:00 +0000

With recent developments here in CASA we somehow managed to miss the addition of automated 3D models into Google Earth for London. The mix of hand made and we presume LiDAR derived models is stunning with resolution down to modelling the chimneys on many buildings:

The quad at University College London is notably impressive, as is Trafalgar Square. The model is far from complete but we assume other areas are on their way.

Music: London Town by Rod Kinny on unsigned.

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SketchUp 8: Google Building Maker Direct in SketchUp

Andy — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:25:00 +0000

Google has announced the new features available in SketchUp 8. The highlight in our eyes is the integration of Google Building Maker direct into SketchUp.

Any building maker building in Google Earth can be imported, combine this with exports to Unity/Crysis etc and just think about the possibilities…

Download for free at http://sketchup.google.com

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SketchUp 8: Google Building Maker Direct in SketchUp

Andy — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:25:00 +0000

Google has announced the new features available in SketchUp 8. The highlight in our eyes is the integration of Google Building Maker direct into SketchUp.

Any building maker building in Google Earth can be imported, combine this with exports to Unity/Crysis etc and just think about the possibilities…

Download for free at http://sketchup.google.com

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London Cycle Hire in Google Earth

Andy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:39:00 +0000

Adrian Short, the person behind the fantastic Boris Bikes API which serves live data about bike and docking station availability has created a visualization in Google Earth detailing current bike availability across London:

To view the live version and see full details on how it was done – head over to Adrian’s blog post. For more about design, citizenship and city keep an eye on http://adrianshort.co.uk/

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London Cycle Hire in Google Earth

Andy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:39:00 +0000

To view the live version and see full details on how it was done – head over to Adrian’s blog post. For more about design, citizenship and city keep an eye on http://adrianshort.co.uk/

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Navigate Google Earth with Two Ping Pong Balls and Some LEDs

Andy — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:22:00 +0000

While thinking about new ways to control and navigate geographical visualisations we came back to some previous work using two ping pong balls and two LEDs to fly through Google Earth.

Based on the Atlas Gloves system we utilized a projector displaying Google Earth and the control software in a blacked out lecture theatre. This allowed a clear view of the lights which are turned on and off in combination with various hand gestures to remotely control Google Earth.

The movie below demonstrates the trial, we were going to leave the movie audio free but couldn’t resist dubbing in the The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Stokowski.

Linking Google Earth to a remote vision based control interface is quick and easy and the fact it worked first time is testament to the teams clear instructions and software.

Take a look at Atlas Gloves to try it out yourself.

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A-Team: Drive the Van in Google Earth

Andy — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:35:00 +0000

Google Earth still amazes in terms of visualisation and in the latest development, planetinaction has created a ‘game’ linked to the up and coming A Team movie:

YouTube can be a harsh place to be sometimes and the comments on the various clips have been cutting. What needs to be remembered is that this is running in Google Earth and for us that stands as some achievement.

Click here and play the game.

Picked up via the ever excellent Google Earth Blog

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Skape – 3D City Viewer and Download Tool: New Movie and Demo Online

Andy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Earlier this week we had the pleasure of meeting the people from Infoterra for a demo of their recently released 3D city viewer. Known as ‘Skape’ it enables you to view and perhaps more importantly upload and download highly realistic 3D environments, for visual concepts and interaction with building information. With 12 cities in the UK now available the level of detail and fidelity in the textures is notable. We tend to get quite a few companies through the doors of CASA with 3D models and we can honestly say Skape is the best we have seen so far. The movie below provides an overview, its interesting to see how far the industry has come in just a few short years:

Skape is designed as a professional tool, moving it away from the current models and level of functionality found in Google Earth or Bing. It is aimed at a range of industries, including architecture, planning, building development and environmental consultation. However, it is free to view the cities and at the moment free to create movies as well, as such it makes for an interesting spatial analysis and visualization tool.

Take a look at http://www.skapeworld.com/index.htm for more info and to try it out.

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Skape – 3D City Viewer and Download Tool: New Movie and Demo Online

Andy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Take a look at http://www.skapeworld.com/index.htm for more info and to try it out.

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London Twitter Cloud

Andy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Regular readers will know we have been logging data in 12 cities via our Tweet-o-Meter, its still early days but the results for a weekend in London are intriguing.

The data covers a weekend period from Friday evening to Monday morning containing 380,000 individual tweets. Within these 60,000 were geo-referenced, tweeted by 5,500 individual users.

In terms of density the focus is on central London with local hotspots as the weekend progresses, around Kings Cross and Old Street. There is also a noticable trace along the main transport routes into and out of town, noting that we seem to be tweeting while on the move. The clip below details the visualisation in Google Earth:

Music – ‘Social Awkwardness‘ by Xanthe over on unsigned bands.

The clip reveals a message cloud rising and hovering above London as a time-space aquarium where the time is plotted as the height information. Interestingly Google Earth is becoming the visualiser of choice for such data sets, the combination of location, imagery with the ability to view by time makes it a formidable engine for data visualisation.

Thanks go to urbantick who converted the data via a custom VB script.

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