Google Data » Tasha Danko

Geotagging photos with Panoramio and Google Latitude

Tasha Danko — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:45:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Panoramio Blog]

It is 9 a.m. and the thermometer shows -15°C. I have a Nexus S with Google Latitude in my left pocket and my new Lumix LX-5 in the right one. I am in Davos and I am ready for a fantastic day of skiing when I decide to use the new feature of Panoramio: geotagging photos with Google Latitude.

Panoramio is a community photos website that enables digital photographers to geo-locate, store and organize their photographs -- and to view those photographs in Google Earth.

Google Latitude allows you to share your location with friends and view their location on a map. When enabled, Google Latitude History allows you to store your previous locations and this allows you to match your photos with the locations stored in Google Latitude History.

By combining Panoramio and Google Latitude your photos get geotagged automatically as the time stamp of the photos is matched with your location record in Google Latitude History. To use this feature you need to explicitly enable it in your Settings page in Panoramio. With your permission, Panoramio will access your Google Latitude History to find out your location at the time when your photos are taken, so make sure the time in your camera is correct and it matches the value you entered in the Panoramio Settings page.

Using Google Latitude while skiing allows you to find your friends when you get lost on the slopes, and at the same time it allows you to focus on taking nice photos not worrying about the location where you are taking them.

Mapping photos within the city is normally not a problem as you can easily remember street names, points of interest, etc. It is much more difficult to do it in the countryside and that is why I decided to give the feature a whirl while skiing in Davos:

Thanks to Google Latitude, my photos were geotagged just after uploading them in Panoramio. The day was great, snow was perfect, weather was amazing and when I arrived home my photos were already geo-positioned.

For more information about this feature please check our help content and as always we will be happy to hear your feedback in the Panoramio forum.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Mission Blue: Return to the Gulf of Mexico

Tasha Danko — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:03:00 +0000

With support from Google, the Waitt Foundation, Hope Spots LLC and the National Geographic Society, Sylvia Earle and Mission Blue are embarking on an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico that will take a deep look at how the region is recovering from the five million gallons of oil spilled from the BP Deep Horizon Oil Spill last year. Follow along with the expedition by checking back daily and clicking on the blue ship icon in Google Earth located off of the US coast near Pensacola, Florida, where the expedition begins (make sure the Places layer is turned on). The science team will share updates and media from the expedition, including photographs, videos and links to Google maps on the National Geographic News Watch blog here.

Click on the blue ship icon near Pensacola, Florida in Google Earth
to see the most recent post from the expedition.

"Our goal is to identify areas with potential for Gulf ecosystem recovery," said Dr. Earle, founder of SEAlliance and recipient of the 2009 TED Prize that developed into Mission Blue, an international ocean conservation movement. "That is going to require protection of places healthy enough to replenish and rebuild populations. What’s happened here is far from over for the clams and oysters and other sea life critical to a healthy Gulf of Mexico."

The fate and impact of the spilled oil, gas and dispersants applied following the blowout into the Gulf are the subject of intense discussion by experts. The expedition team, assembled under the broad banner of the Mission Blue initiative, seeks answers to questions about the current status of key species and ecosystems.

Other research participants include: Dr. Thomas Shirley, Larry McKinney, Douglas Weaver and Harriet Nash from the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; Edith Widder and Brandy Nelson, Ocean Research & Conservation Association and Carl Safina, Blue Ocean Institute. Research dives are planned using a Dual Deepworker submersible made available to the expedition by the Waitt Institute.

You can also experience the expedition for yourself by downloading this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Jenifer Foulkes, Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth and Maps

Dashing through the snow… with NORAD and Google

Tasha Danko — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Every Christmas Eve, children all over the world ask themselves—and their parents—questions about Santa’s magical journey. How does Santa visit so many children in one night? Will he eat the cookies I left out? How does he fit all those presents into his sleigh? These childhood mysteries are part of what makes the Santa tradition so special.

There’s one timeless question that we’re proud to say we can help answer: Where in the world is Santa at this very moment? Thanks in part to recent advances in warp-speed GPS technology and some very clever elves (elveneering?) NORAD Tracks Santa is once again prepped and ready to go.

Starting tomorrow, December 24 at 2:00am EST, visit www.noradsanta.org to follow Santa as he journeys around the world delivering presents to children in more than 200 countries and territories. There are a few different ways to find the jolly old man in his unmistakable red suit over the course of the day, so feel free to track him using any of the following methods:

See Santa on a Google Map: On your home computer or laptop, visit www.noradsanta.org and choose your preferred language. You’ll see a large Google Map on the page displaying Santa’s current location and his next stop. Click the video icons to watch “Santa Cam” videos, and click the gift icons to learn more about each city.
Watch Santa fly with the Google Earth Plug-in: From www.noradsanta.org, click on the link Track Santa in Google Earth. You'll see Santa steering his sleigh right on the webpage. If you don't have the Google Earth plug-in, you can get ready by downloading it ahead of time.
Follow Santa on your phone: Track Santa from your mobile phone by opening Google Maps for mobile and searching for [santa]. Or, visit m.noradsanta.org on your phone’s browser.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel: Santa’s home on YouTube is at http://www.youtube.com/noradtrackssanta. That’s where you can find videos from his journey throughout the night.
Get real-time information about Santa’s location: Use Google’s Realtime Search to get updates from social networks, news and micro-blogs like Twitter at @noradsanta, and keep up with news about his journey on this Facebook page.

For any techie questions you might have, we’ve also put together some helpful tips and tricks about all the cool ways you can experience Santa’s journey. Now that you know how to follow Saint Nick on Christmas Eve, it’s our tradition to tell the story of how this all started...

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) first began to track Santa in 1955 when a misprinted advertisement in a Sears & Roebuck catalogue mistakenly led callers expecting a Santa-hotline to the NORAD commander-in-chief's telephone. Embracing the spirit of the season, NORAD used its satellite and radar capabilities to offer callers sleigh-location updates, and has tracked Santa's whereabouts on Christmas Eve ever since. Then in 2004, Google started tracking Santa on Google Earth as a 20% project, which in 2007 grew into a partnership with NORAD, adding the mapping technology of Google Maps and Google Earth to the NORAD experience. Over the years, other Google teams have also joined in the holiday fun (YouTube, Google Voice’s www.SendACallFromSanta.com and Google SketchUp).

As we approach this year’s Christmas Eve adventure, Santa was able to take a break from the preparations to visit the New York Stock Exchange this past Monday. His helpful elves kept everything at the North Pole on schedule while folks from Google and NORAD attended the Closing Bell ceremony, and stood alongside Santa from Macy’s going over last minute details about tomorrow’s big ride.

Santa with NORAD, Google and members of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation (that’s me, the tall guy in the back row clapping)

So don’t forget to visit www.noradsanta.org tomorrow morning starting at 2:00am EST when Santa embarks on his flight. From all of us here at Google, happy holidays and here’s to a very happy New Year!

Posted by Brian McClendon, Original Google Engineering Elf

Announcing the Panoramio Photo Contest

Tasha Danko — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:30:00 +0000

The Panoramio community enables you to share your photos and explore them on Google Earth, Google Maps and other places. If you’ve never geo-tagged a photo, watch this video to learn how easy it is to add photos to the Panoramio layer in Google Earth.

Now you can add some excitement to your photo project and enter your photos to the monthly Panoramio Geotagged Photo Contest! Starting this month, we’ll be giving away the new Casio Hybrid-GPS camera EX-H20G to the winner of each category (Scenery, Heritage, Travel and Unusual Location). The Panoramio community reviews all of the submissions and votes for what they consider to be the best each month.

Casio’s new Hybrid-GPS camera combines a GPS engine with autonomic positioning made possible by a motion sensor. This makes geotagging easy—both outdoors and indoors.

If you haven’t joined the Panoramio community yet, try it out and don’t forget to participate in our monthly contest. To enter your photo, click on “Submit to the contest” and choose a category. Good luck and we can’t wait to see your photos!

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Questions and Ideas for SketchUp 8

Tasha Danko — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Google SketchUp team is listening and wants to hear what you have to say about SketchUp 8!

This week at 3D Basecamp, selected SketchUp enthusiasts will gather in Boulder CO, to meet the SketchUp team and discuss all things in nature. One of the perks of attending 3D Basecamp is that users are presented with the opportunity to speak with SketchUp engineers face to face. They can ask their most pressing questions and share their most brilliant ideas for improving SketchUp.

Well guess what? This year, we are happy to announce that there is a way for every SketchUp fan (whether at 3D Basecamp or not) to be heard by the SketchUp team.

Today, we are launching our Google SketchUp Questions and Ideas moderator series where all SketchUp users can post questions and share ideas directly with the SketchUp team. The team is looking to clarify any questions you may have related to SketchUp 8 and is interested in hearing suggestions and ideas for improving SketchUp. We’re interested in hearing all your wildest ideas, so don’t be shy! While you’re on the series, also make sure to vote on other users’ questions and ideas. The SketchUp team will address top submissions publicly at 3D Basecamp and responses will also be posted directly in the series and in subsequent blog posts.

There are a few things to keep in mind when using the series. The series will have two different sections: one for asking questions about SketchUp 8, and one for posting any suggestions or ideas you have for making SketchUp better. Make sure you are posting in the appropriate section. Secondly, Please search for your question or idea FIRST to make sure it hasn’t already been posted. If it has, you should vote for it instead of writing in a duplicate. Also make sure to only submit one question or idea at a time, so it’s clear to your fellow users’ what exactly they are voting on. Following these rules will allow for more accurate voting results, and the SketchUp team will be able to comment on the questions and ideas you really care about.

The SketchUp team looks forward to hearing from you!

Posted by Carolyn Wendell, SketchUp Support Team

Upgrading to SketchUp Pro 8

Tasha Danko — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:50:00 +0000

Google Sketchup Pro 8 (with LayOut 3) is now available for purchase or upgrade in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. You can find out all about the great new features in this short video. It's really quite simple to upgrade from previous versions of SketchUp Pro to the latest one: If you have an active license for SketchUp Pro 7 (or 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1) you can upgrade it to a SketchUp Pro 8 license through our online store. Once you've purchased your new, upgraded license, you'll receive an email with two important pieces of information:

1. A link to download Google SketchUp Pro 8 (if you haven't already)
2. License information you need to authorize your software

If you’d like to try it out before upgrading, please feel free to download an eight-hour trial from our website.

Here are some more things to keep in mind:

The cost to upgrade each license is US$95, EU€83 or UK£68.
Please have your current serial number, registered user and company name available when you visit the upgrade portion of our store.
If you do not have your current serial or authorization number, follow these instructions to locate and retrieve them.
If you have any trouble upgrading, please visit our Help Center for more detailed instructions.
If you purchased a SketchUp Pro 7 license on or after August 1, 2010, the upgrade fee is waived as long as you upgrade on or before November 1, 2010.
If you have an EDU license that is not yet expired, your SketchUp Pro 8 upgrade is free.
If you purchased a SketchUp Pro license through one of our authorized resellers, please contact that reseller directly for upgrade terms.
If you have a need to contact us through the Help Center in the near future, please keep in mind that while we do get a little bogged down at release time, we will do our best to get back to you as as quickly as possible.

Thanks for your continued business and happy sketching!

Posted by Nancy Trigg, Sales and Operations Manager

Announcing Google SketchUp 8

Tasha Danko — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Today is an exciting day around the SketchUp World Headquarters out here in Boulder, Colorado. We’ve just kicked off our third bi-annual “3D Basecamp” to a crowd of SketchUp-savvy folks converging on The Dairy Center from all around the world. I’m looking forward to some great conversations about SketchUp and 3D modeling in general over the next few days. But that’s not our only news today...

We’ve also finished work on SketchUp 8, the next major release of our favorite 3D modeling tool. We’ve been heads down and working hard for most of the last year, and I’m happy to be able to share with you the fruits of our labor.

Google SketchUp 8 includes a batch of exciting new features. We’ve made it easier to build site context models for your projects using our ever-growing collection of geo-data. We’ve added a new collection of “Solid” tools for doing common additive/subtractive modeling operations and we’ve packed out LayOut with some new features that make it easier to document your models professionally.

Ordinarily, those of you who use SketchUp in a language other than English have to wait a few weeks for a version in your language. But not this time—today, SketchUp 8 is available for download in English, French, Spanish, Italian or German language versions. (We weren’t able to get all our translations done in time for release today, but keep an eye on this blog for news about SketchUp 8 in more languages soon)

As always, SketchUp Pro 8 is available for $495 from our web store. Upgrades from any previous version of SketchUp Pro can be had from for only $95. And, of course, we’ve still got a version of SketchUp available for free. Head on over to our main website for all the details.

You can be sure we’ll be talking about this release a lot over the next few days at 3D Basecamp, but I want to make sure that those of you who weren’t able to join us in Boulder have a chance to let us know what you think, too. I’ve posted a new Google SketchUp Questions and Ideas series. I’m listening, and I’ll respond to as many of the top posts there as I can.

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Product Manager

Community Celebration in Peru

Tasha Danko — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Recently, a team of Googlers traveled to Peru and celebrated the winner (and community) of the Google International Model Your Town Competition. Jorge De Albertis of Lima won through a process where people all over the world voted for one of five finalists. His ability to win so many votes was a testament to the power of a community coming together to support Jorge’s efforts. His contribution creating 3D models of many of the historical buildings in the Barranco District of Lima has garnered a lot of attention in his country, and worldwide.

There were four majors parts to the celebration:

1. As part of the winning prize, Google gave a donation to a public school of Jorge’s choice. Jorge talked to the students and staff at a ceremony in the school’s courtyard, and we presented a large check to IE 7053 Reino De Espana Public School. Googlers helped students with a hands-on paper 3D modeling project, where they constructed models of the buildings Jorge submitted for the competition. The school graciously hosted a celebration for Jorge and Google, which included a welcome by student marching bands, traditional Peruvian dances, ballerinas, theater acts, singing, and a poetry jam.

Click here to see more photos from the events.

2. Jorge and Google hosted a series of tech talks to over 80 design and architecture students and faculty at the University of Lima, explaining how others can get involved with modeling their communities. Demos were presented on Jorge’s project, SketchUp, Map Maker, and Building Maker. Watch a video of an interview of Jorge at the University of Lima.

3. The Latin America International Film Festival had a looping video of Jorge’s work running throughout the week.

4. Google held a celebration in Jorge’s honor at Picas, which was attended by designers, architects, educators, tourism officials, and the general Lima community. The fun-filled event had demo stations where people could learn more about Google Earth, Map Maker, Building Maker, and Google SketchUp. The band, Colectivo Circo played to a packed house. Jorge received a plaque and spoke to the community about his efforts. We are thrilled to have visited Jorge and to have met many people in the Lima community. Congratulations, Jorge!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp for Education Program Manager

Try some SketchUp Training this Fall

Tasha Danko — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:45:00 +0000

Our September and October 2010 SketchUp Authorized Training Center schedule is now available. The map below contains information on specific locations, dates, and courses provided.

View September/ October 2010 Training Schedule in a larger map

We have some great news for RIAI members in Ireland. Members can now receive CDP points for attending SketchUp Essentials One training through Viewsion, a SketchUp Authorized Training Center.

Posted by Shara Greenlee, SketchUp Training Team

Street View Imagery Available in Building Maker

Tasha Danko — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:26:00 +0000

If you’ve ever modeled a building in Google Building Maker, you may have found yourself wanting to use crisper, more detailed photos in addition to the aerial oblique imagery. Or, you may have had problems with poor textures caused by other buildings blocking the view of your building. In response to these issues we recently added the ability to add your own photos to Building Maker, but now you can also use imagery directly from Street View on Google Maps!

Start modeling your building using the aerial imagery. After you have constrained a block in at least two aerial images, you will be able to “Add Street View Images” from a drop down menu on the left-hand side. Capture a few images from Street View and continue modeling as normal. The following video illustrates an example of using this new feature:

We have also added 6 new cities to Building Maker (all, with the exception of Vienna, have Street View imagery!):

Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Vienna, Austria
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Santa Cruz, CA, United States
Riverside, CA, United States

Try modeling with Street View imagery in Google Building Maker now!

Posted by Nicole Drobeck, Geo Community Advocate

Stay informed about your models

Tasha Danko — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:45:00 +0000

Great news! In response to customer feedback, the Google 3D Warehouse now sends model updates via email, allowing you to stay informed about the status of your models as they’re being evaluated.

Now, when your model is published to Google Earth you’ll receive a congratulatory message. Likewise, we’ll also let you know if your model wasn’t accepted, or if it was replaced by another model. With these email notifications, you don’t have to check your models in the 3D Warehouse to see their status. When we have an update, we’ll send you an email.

As always, we respect your right to control how much email you get from Google. If you’d like to update your current email notification settings, please visit your preferences.

Posted by Jim Guggemos, Software Engineer

Two Chilean cities added to Google Building Maker

Tasha Danko — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:20:00 +0000

For those of you who haven’t yet tried it, Google Building Maker is our simple 3D modeling tool that allows you to construct buildings by aligning various types of blocks to photos - all from your Internet browser. The completed models are automatically geo-located and then reviewed for inclusion in the 3D Buildings layer on Google Earth. When the tool was originally released last fall, users could create buildings in 50 cities. Since then, more cities have continually been added, and the growing tally is now at 94.

As part of our latest offering, we’re excited to announce that the cities of Santiago and Valparaiso in Chile are the first South American cities available in Google Building Maker.

Modeling in Santiago, Chile with Google Building Maker

We should note, however, that geo-modeling with Google SketchUp has been steadily increasing in that region for some time now. For example, avid user gananunez has been modeling in Valparaiso for a year and has more than 50 models in the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth!

Valparaiso, Chile

Two other long-time users, GecKo StuDio. and Sergio, have been modeling Santiago since 2007 and each has more than 30 models in the 3D Buildings layer. Some users, like jgago93, are just getting started in the area.

Santiago, Chile

Now everyone can help model these two cities with Google Building Maker. Click here to start modeling, and get your buildings on the 3D map!

Posted by Nicole Drobeck, Geo Community Advocate

Seville in 3D with Google Earth

Tasha Danko — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:10:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce that you can now explore the city of Seville in 3D with Google Earth. Take a virtual tour of the most symbolic buildings of the Spanish city, that range from the Roman Empire, through the Calatrava bridges to the best examples of contemporary architecture.

This is a unique opportunity to visit the Andalusian capital avoiding the summer heat. We encourage you to walk to the Torre del Oro, Plaza de España or La Real Maestranza - just using your computer mouse.

Posted by Isabel Salazar, Spain Product Marketing Team

Berlin and Stuttgart in 3D

Tasha Danko — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:38:00 +0000

We released two new cities in Google Earth’s 3D Buildings layer today - Berlin and Stuttgart. Both of these proud German cities contain numerous architectural masterpieces, making them ideal destinations for virtual tourism.

Having resided in Stuttgart, I was particularly excited to see many of the places that I’ve frequented appear in Google Earth. The first place I visited on my own virtual tour was Schillerplatz square a site where numerous holiday festivals and markets are held. Walking distance from there is the Schlossgarten, the large, park-like area that includes the old castle, the National Theatre, Stuttgart’s main train station, the opera, and planetarium.

Geo-modelers, peterX and tbr, have modeled many of the places of interest in Stuttgart, all of which are contained in this collection.

Before leaving Stuttgart make sure you visit the corporate headquarters of the famous Mercedes brand, as well as the massive television tower that can be seen from anywhere in the city.

Being the capital of this once divided country, Berlin boasts a plethora of famous government and cultural buildings. The Brandenburg Gate at Pariser Platz, the former location of the infamous “Berlin Wall” may well be one of the most visited places in Google Earth. If you fly there, you can explore the Tiergarten (Soviet war museum), Reichstag, Kongresshalle, and famous monuments such as the Berliner Siegessaule - all within a short walking distance.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Google SketchUp 7.1 is now available in Russian and Dutch

Tasha Danko — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:05:00 +0000

We have just added some new language support to Google SketchUp 7.1, making '3D for Everyone' available to people who speak French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean and Traditional Chinese. Today, I'm pleased to say "welkom" and "добро пожаловать" to those of you who speak Dutch and Russian as we release new language support for Google SketchUp 7.1 in your language. SketchUp 7.1 is now available in a total of eleven languages...but stay tuned. We've still got a few more to go!

Update: Removed Polish from the list of languages in which SketchUp 7.1 is currently available.

Posted by John Bacus, Product Manager

Rotterdam in 3D

Tasha Danko — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:10:00 +0000

Being of Dutch decent, I’m particularly excited to announce the introduction of Rotterdam, Netherlands as the latest 3D city to be in Google Earth!

While there’s plenty to see when visiting this southern city of 600,000 residents, if you’re a fan of architecture then you’ll want to fly directly to the Kubuswoningen (cube houses).

The Kubuswonigen is a set of innovative houses designed by architect Piet Blom in 1984. The houses are tilted at 45 degrees, and sit on hexagon-shaped pylons. There are 38 small cubes and two so called 'super-cubes', all attached to each other.

The cube houses are quite an attraction and visitors are said to frequently disturb the local so often that one owner reportedly decided to open a "show cube", which is furnished as a normal house, and is making a living out of offering tours to visitors. Brilliant!

The geo-modeling community is very active in Rotterdam. Over 100 user-created buildings (created with Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker) are in the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth - including the cube houses, the Erasmus bridge (“De Zwaan”), and the Feijenoord Stadion, among others.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Explore the South African stadiums in 3D

Tasha Danko — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Whether you call it soccer, like us, or football, like the rest of the world, we have your virtual ticket to South Africa right here. Google Earth is proud to feature 3D models of all ten stadiums and the nine cities of host nation South Africa.

To check it out for yourself, download this 3D tour to explore the stadiums in Google Earth, or check it out using the new Earth view in Google Maps. Fly into Green Point Stadium for a seat looking out at Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain. From there you may want to head over to the dramatic arch that suspends Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium. The distinctive multi-hued orange shell of Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg is a must see. It’s here where South Africa kicks off against Mexico in the first game on June 11, and where the final takes place exactly a month later.

See what’s in store for you to explore in Google Earth:

South Africa offers much more than soccer stadiums of course, which is why we’ve also modeled thousands of buildings around the country. These 3D cities can help you get a feel for why South Africa receiving the world’s attention. And if you’re lucky enough to be there, you might like to see how close the stadium is to your hotel.

Finally, since several of the stadiums are either newly constructed or heavily remodeled, you can use the Historical Imagery feature in Google Earth to see the transformation over the years. Open up Google Earth, turn on the Historical Imagery layer by clicking on the clock button at the top, and slide the bar to travel through time.

We realize that the United States winning the Cup is a long-shot, but the 3D team here in Boulder, Colorado will be cheering for team USA anyway!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Author badges in the 3D Warehouse

Tasha Danko — Fri, 28 May 2010 15:45:00 +0000

We’re excited to introduce author badges in the Google 3D Warehouse. Badges are our way of recognizing your modeling accomplishments and helping to establish your reputation in the 3D Warehouse community.

There are badges for:

uploading a SketchUp model
creating a Building Maker model
recognizing the number of buildings you’ve had accepted into the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth

Here are my badges as displayed in My Models page:

As you can see, I’ve been busy working on badges and not models, so perhaps you’d like to see badges for more prolific geo-modelers? Check out a couple of our featured modelers: Tobias Merk and ftang. A complete explanation of the badges can be found in this help center article.

Ready to see what badges you already have? Sign into the 3D Warehouse and take a look. Your badges will be visible right on the front page. You can also click on My Warehouse > My Models to see your badges. Want to see what badges other users have? Simply click on their user name to get to their profile page. Competition among modelers just became a lot more fun. Stay tuned for more badges!

Posted by Dale Hawkins, Software Engineer

Use your own photos in Building Maker

Tasha Danko — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Previously, Google Building Maker restricted you to using only our aerial images for your models. Today, we are happy to announce a new feature that allows you to upload your own photos for building creation - resulting in higher-detailed and more realistic building facades! The following images demonstrate how this new feature improves your building's appearance:

Watch this video to learn how to use this feature:

A new "Add your own photos" link will appear below the left image list after you have constrained three points of a block in at least two aerial images. Click on that link to upload your photos to a Picasa album, choose the photos for modeling, and specify the direction you were aiming when you took the photos. The new photos will appear in the image list.

Select one of these photos and adjust the block to fit. You must first adjust the block to fit (having added 7 points) before the Building Maker tools will be enabled. For further information refer to our user guide article.

There are also some example photos here for your experimentation. We hope you will have fun with this new addition!

Posted by Zhe Fan, Google Building Maker Team

Benvenuti a Venezia

Tasha Danko — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:43:00 +0000

Venice, Italy in 3D is now live on Google Earth. You can take a virtual stroll starting at the train station (Venezia Santa Lucia) and traverse Ponte Scalzi to get to Campo Santa Margherita. You can check out the recently completed "fourth bridge" (Ponte della Costituzione) on the Grand Canal, without ever having to be in Venice. Or, you could watch the city from the vantage point of a bird perched atop St Mark's Campanile (Campanile di San Marco), walk around Palazzo Grassi or explore the Rialto Bridge (Ponte di Rialto).

All of these places and more can be yours to discover through Google Earth and Earth view in Google Maps. Watch the video below to fly through the city to experience the Venetian landmarks.

Whether you've never been to Venice, are a native curious to explore your city from a unique perspective or anything in between Venice in 3D offers an incredible opportunity to visit and explore "La Serenissima" in exciting new ways.

As a Google employee and a native of Italy I treasure the opportunity to virtually rekindle my memory of particular locations in Italy as well as plan trips and itineraries for my next visit home. Buon Viaggio!

Posted by Simone Nicolo, Google SketchUp Team

Experience the 9/11 Memorial in Google Earth

Tasha Danko — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:25:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long blog)

The 9/11 Memorial organization, a non-profit group responsible for care-taking the 9/11 museum and memorial park, first contacted Google in 2008 to explore ideas on how our technology might be used to enhance the experience for people visiting the museum (currently under construction) and on its website. Several ideas were proposed, including the use of Street View, which the group added to their Make History website in 2009.

We met at Google’s New York City office and learned about the many creative exhibit ideas that were planned for the museum, as well as the design concepts behind the 9/11 memorial park. I found it very fascinating. I couldn’t help but wonder: how can this be shared with the world? How can we enable everyone, anywhere to learn more about events of that day, and experience what proposes to be an unforgettable museum and park?

The 9/11 Memorial designers presented artist renderings and physical models of the proposed construction, both of which were impressive, but the audience for each is limited to the small population of the public who can see them in-person. The meeting could have concluded with a list of proposals for the 9/11 organization to pursue, however we left feeling as though Google could and should do more. The events of that day are etched in all of our memories, and we felt obligated to identify an appropriate way to honor the families of the victims and support the organization whose charter it was to preserve our collective memories.

Our proposal of course was Google Earth. The products’ popularity and reach would make it an ideal platform for people to visit and explore the 9/11 site - virtually. Virtual tourism is one of the most common uses of the Google Earth, and, it’s been used to represent both historical and future buildings in the past, so we thought it would be fitting to create a 3D model of the 9/11 memorial so that people anywhere could envision what the memorial will look like when it’s completed next year.

We requested design drawings, artist renderings, and any other visual materials that could be used to construct a 3D model, and went to work. Mason Thrall, one of our most experienced 3D modelers was the first to volunteer to develop a model of the park. The 9/11 Memorial group incorporated the Google Earth plugin into their website, and developed KML placemarks that help orient visitors to the site. Take a 3D tour of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum within the context of the surrounding landscape of lower Manhattan.

The 9/11 memorial is scheduled to open next year, however you can experience today via Google Earth on their website.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Stockholm is on the 3D Map

Tasha Danko — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:40:00 +0000

Stockholm, which is said to be referred to as the “Venice of the North” may not receive a lot of sunlight throughout the year, but today it’s in the limelight as the newest city to be included in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth. Watch the video below to see Stockholm, Sweden in 3D:

Stockholm is a unique geographic location - filled with historic bridges, buildings, and parks. The rich architectural history make it a fulfilling destination for the virtual tourist.

The city's oldest section is "Gamla Stan"(The Old City). It's located on the original small islands of the city's earliest settlements and features cobbled streets and medieval alleyways.

And if time is short, make sure you fly over to The Royal Palace, the official residence of His Majesty The King. Explore Stockholm in 3D with Google Earth and now with Earth view in Google Maps.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

A new home in Jacksonville

Tasha Danko — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:40:00 +0000

We offer a Non-profits Program for public benefit, 501 (c)(3) organizations to apply for a SketchUp Pro grant. One of our grantees, Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville, Inc., sent us this story about using SketchUp Pro for a house plan:

The Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Jacksonville, FL (HabiJax) is about to complete a 14 house subdivision named Paris Village. In preparation for this special project, HabiJax decided to create a new house design, the “Jackson”, and add it to the collection of plans available for selection by our home buyers.

My challenge was to provide a way for our home buyers to envision the “Jackson” without ever seeing it in person. SketchUp was the perfect solution -- it’s fast and easy to learn. As a nonprofit, the affiliate always strives to maximize resources, without sacrificing the quality of our products. SketchUp helped us do just that.

Rendering we used to advertise the new subdivision (SketchUp model rendered in Photoshop)

Choosing a house plan is always an exciting step for our clients in their path to home ownership, and generally our home buyers have to rely on seeing other houses built while they complete their 300 volunteer hours. Many of the Paris Village home buyers ended up selecting the “Jackson” model -- it has quickly become a favorite! We’ve all been very excited to watch the plan come to life as the home buyers, volunteers, and donors worked together on site.

User story, models and photos provided by Jack Spellman, Construction Coordinator, HabiJax

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Pro Team

Spring into a SketchUp training class

Tasha Danko — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Our worldwide network of SketchUp Authorized Training Centers makes learning SketchUp quicker than ever. Our certified SketchUp trainers provide hands-on training that will have you designing, sharing and presenting 3D models in no time. We’ve put the June training schedule on a map below (click on a red pin to learn about the training center and sign up):

View June 2010 Training Schedule in a larger map

Do you need more SketchUp experts in your office? Our Authorized Training Centers also offer custom training classes that can be designed specifically around your workflow. Visit our Training Page to contact a training center in your area.

Posted by Shara Greenlee, SketchUp Training Team

Earth view in Google Maps widens audience for 3D buildings

Tasha Danko — Thu, 13 May 2010 23:22:00 +0000

Last month’s release of Earth view in Google Maps has folks in the Google Boulder office especially excited. For the past four years we’ve been working hard to develop 3D modeling tools and a 3D building approval system to help enhance the experience inside Google Earth. Now anyone with a web browser and the Google Earth Plugin can enjoy the 3D Earth experience directly in Google Maps. A rich, interactive 3D view is a great complement to the 2D map view.

The new Earth View is also big news for creators of 3D buildings as it expands the audience for models. Not only are they visible in Google Earth, but they’re also viewed by all Google Maps users. And now that it’s even easier to access them, high-quality 3D models are more valuable.

If you have models that are in the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth, it’s now easier than ever to share your building with others. From Earth view, click on “Link” in the upper right corner to grab a URL for sharing.

Posted by Bryce Stout, Product Manager

SketchUp goes down under…

Tasha Danko — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:06:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, members of the SketchUp team traveled to Sydney, Australia. We met with customers, attended the Form & Function Conference and presented a SketchUp Pro Demo to local architects at our Google Sydney office. In the next few weeks, I’ll post some of the work they’ve created in SketchUp & LayOut and include a few words on how they’re using 3D design & modeling in their offices.

For Part I of this SketchUp Pro “Down Under” series, the folks at Collard Maxwell Architects shared their story with us:

SketchUp Pro “Down Under” Part I: Collard Maxwell Architects

Collard Maxwell Architects is a Sydney-based architecture firm with a philosophy that successful architecture is the synthesis of art, technology and building economics resulting in memorable, economic and sustainable building solutions.

Alberto Sunderland, a Project Leader for CM+A, says that initially SketchUp Pro was used as a quick visualization tool of early concept work.

“The models were never very detailed and it was a tool used primarily within the office. It was used as a quick way of understanding massing and scale to determine if the design was heading the right direction."

SketchUp is used to confirm a complex set of egress stairs from a substation.

“As our skill grew we began to use SketchUp to generate models we could show our clients to help them understand the projects and to provide a quick and effective way of trying out changes before updating all our cad documentation."

Hornsby Project - Model was especially useful as the client was asked by council to explore a number of options for the façade treatment. Council signed off the changes based primarily on the images generated from the SketchUp model.

Balcony Detail - Model used to help the owners of the building understand very clearly what their balcony extensions will look like and show the builder detailed information.

“Over a period of time we began to use SketchUp Pro for tender presentations. Although we originally took the images and “dumped them” into Photoshop to create the presentation posters, we eventually discovered the possibilities of the SketchUp Pro’s LayOut tool. Combining LayOut with our SketchUp work has made the creation of simple, effective and clear presentations much quicker than our previous method utilizing Photoshop. We are very impressed.”

“We anticipate that SketchUp will become the primary visualisation tool in this office and, together with LayOut, it will be used to create most, if not all our presentation slides. The speed and ease of use of the software is amazing, and we are coming to appreciate the importance it may have within our workflow.”

Thank you Alberto and the entire CM+A staff for providing the project graphics and their story. SketchUp Pro “Down Under” to be continued...

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Pro Team

Save the Date: Google Geo Teachers Institute, July 21-22

Tasha Danko — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:52:00 +0000

For years, Google's Geo products have been identified as a powerful learning toolkit that can help students conceptualize, visualize, share, and communicate information about the world around them.

This July, Google is hosting the first Google Geo Teachers Institute. This event is a free professional development experience designed to help educators get the most from Google's Geo products and technologies. The Geo Teachers Institute is an intensive, two-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's Geo products: Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google SketchUp, including a focus on features like Mars, Moon and Sky in Google Earth.

Attendees will learn about innovative instructional strategies and receive resources to share with colleagues. The Google Geo Education team hopes this event will empower educators to bring the world's geographic information to students in a compelling, fresh, and fun way.

To apply, send an email to geoedu@google.com.

Posted by Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Team

Take part in the SketchUp to Piranesi Competition

Tasha Danko — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:07:00 +0000

Our friends over at SketchUcation are hosting a nifty challenge: The SketchUp to Piranesi Competition is meant to celebrate the features of the SketchUp to Piranesi Plugin, as well as the “Design to Art” abilities of Piranesi 2010.

Piranesi is a whiz-bang app that lets you turn your model views into beautiful NPR (non-photorealistic) renderings. My favorite part about it is that it’s far from an automated process; using Piranesi is more like painting and drawing with natural media than using clunky software. You need to try it to see what I mean.

You can download a fully-functional demo version of Piranesi in order to participate in this competition. Use either SketchUp Pro or the free version of SketchUp to participate. This workflow page should help you get started.

Check out the official competition announcement on the Daily CatchUp (SketchUcation’s blog) for more information about prizes, rules and more. John Bacus (the SketchUp Product Manager) and I are two of the judges -- we can’t wait to see what you create.

Sir Elder / Larice's Living

Susan Sorger / Entourage Arts

David A. Walker / Modern Infill

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Explore more 3D models in Lisbon

Tasha Danko — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:15:00 +0000

The city of Lisbon, Portugal is the latest addition to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. Over 14,000 models have been added to fill in around areas where many user-contributed models already existed.

Sé de Lisboa

Since Google Building Maker added Lisbon to the available cities to model, geo-modelers have been adding incredible 3D buildings throughout the area.

Pavilhão Carlos Lopes modeled by peterX

However, let’s not forget some of the amazing SketchUp models that have been in the 3D Buildings layer even earlier:

Mae d'agua modeled by rafa

Santa Justa Lift modeled by Versus, Lda

We encourage you to explore the rest of Lisbon in Google Earth, or with the new Earth view in Google Maps!

Posted by Nicole Drobeck, 3D Data Specialist

SketchUp in a high school history class

Tasha Danko — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Pick a high school - any high school - and in the history class you might find some of the students doodling, yawning and pretending to stay awake. Replace that scene with an enthusiastic teacher and a healthy dose of SketchUp and you might see every student engaged! After all, it’s not every day a high school student can model a local building and upload to Google Earth for the world to see. In some cases, they might get so engaged they chomp at the bit to get access to tutorial videos while on road trips.

Does this sound far fetched? Not to Hartford High School teacher, Michael Hathorn, who introduced his class to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth and started teaching them about local history while they used SketchUp to model their home town of Hartford, Vermont. The class caught on quickly and now have over 75 models in their Hartford History Project collection in the Google 3D Warehouse. Over 50 buildings have been accepted into Google Earth.

The benefits of students being engaged in their own learning has not been lost on Michael. He told us, “Some teachers may say the book history is more important but I feel like the end result is these guys are teaching, verses learning and that’s when you really become a student - when you make that transition to teaching. I think learning SketchUp is really important for a history class like this.”

Technology has been a key part of the class, and the idea that the students would share their local history with the world. They created a website and blog to accompany and showcase the 3D models. With each model created, a history of the building is researched and added to the growing website dedicated to their town. It’s definitely worth a look.

We were so intrigued by the efforts of these students that we highlighted them in a new video:

Posted by Tyson Kartchner, Google SketchUp Team

Five continents and counting – new cities in Building Maker

Tasha Danko — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:35:00 +0000

You might have noticed that the Building Maker team has been quiet on the city front in the last month. Well, we’ve been working behind the scenes to make our next set of cities available for modeling. With 11 new cities, Google Building Maker has extended its coverage to include nine new cities in South Africa and two new regions (plus added coverage of two existing regions) in California.

Whether you want to explore the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, model the cities where the Springboks play or explore the venues of another sporting code, now is your chance. Go to Google Building Maker and choose one of these cities from the top-right drop-down menu or click on a red pin to zoom down. The new cities in Building Maker are:

South Africa

Bloemfontein
Cape Town
Durban
Johannesburg
Nelspruit
Phokeng
Polokwane
Port Elizabeth
Pretoria

California

Oakland
Berkeley
San Francisco (extended coverage)
Redwood city (extended coverage)

Happy modeling!

Posted by Matt Simpson, User Experience Designer

Building positions are now automatically updating

Tasha Danko — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:26:00 +0000

We have some good news to share with respect to 3D buildings and Google Earth imagery.

A common challenge for geo-modelers are imagery updates that occur after a building model has been published to Google Earth. In some updates models were unaffected, but in others, models became misaligned (some significantly).

We appreciate the fact that our enthusiastic geo-modeling community prefers to spend their time creating buildings instead of chasing imagery around. Our engineers have been hard at work solving this problem.

Very shortly we'll be running a program that identifies models that have been affected by imagery shifts, and automatically adjust them. The earth is an imperfect place so it’s possible, that not every building will adjust perfectly. However, our testing suggests that this new system of tracking imagery updates should help immensely. This new feature will work both retroactively and into the future. You can be rest assured that we’ll be trying to keep your models aligned properly going forward as our imagery is updated.

If your model was affected by this process you'll see a notification on your model details page. The notification will indicate whether we were able to automatically adjust the model or not.

In either case, we encourage you to review your models in the Google 3D Warehouse to see whether any action is required by you. We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue has caused and hope that this system improvement will be met with much user-happiness.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

A school for Mayan Teachers

Tasha Danko — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:18:00 +0000

3D models to help in visualization and communication have been one of SketchUp’s big strengths. Recently, I got in contact with Jim Fanjoy, an architect in the Peace Corps who has been using SketchUp for a school project in Guatemala. He has been using SketchUp models not only to help communicate with members of his team, but also to help bridge the language barrier between his design group and the local work force. Here's his story:

When I was originally contacted by the nonprofit for help designing the school, I did my first design proposals in SketchUp. It's fast, I used it before I joined the Peace Corps, and the renderings it produces are easily understandable by laypeople. Once we settled on a concept and started to develop it, I began showing plans and sections and elevations to the village elders and the local masons. It became clear early on that these types of drawings were causing a lot of confusion. In the US, we've spent centuries formalizing a system of presenting design data, and everyone in the construction industry has been trained to read plans, sections, and elevations. In the third world, though, most construction is done by semi-literate craftsmen with a good intuitive sense of what works, but no experience with drawings. And on a two-level, 8,000sf school, drawings were going to be necessary.

Spanish is a second language for all of us (the masons speak Q'anjob'al, a Mayan dialect), so I thought that the language barrier would be the biggest problem. Instead, I had to present the entire set of drawings in a non-traditional way that could be understood by the work crew. Using SketchUp, I modeled the building in much more detail than I normally would for design visualization. Using axonometric and three-point projections, carefully placed section cuts, and a lot of layers, I made drawings that show how the building would look during different phases of construction.

Complex systems, like the plumbing to catch and contain the rainwater for domestic use, are presented in perspective for easier visualization. Zoom-in details are presented only where they are critical, so the craftsmen will have the flexibility to use their traditional knowhow where it can save materials or labor. The various scenes from SketchUp were then brought into LayOut, so they could be labeled and printed out for the workmen.

Since SketchUp can be found in almost any design office, it also makes a good communication medium between consultants. I emailed my SketchUp model to an engineer in the US, to get his feedback on a few structural issues. My village is located on a remote mountainside in the highlands, and we have no phone lines or mail delivery. Via cellular internet and SketchUp, I had his response the next day.

SketchUp is also helping during construction. When there was some confusion on how to lay out the decorative "Mayan stairs" on the ends of the classrooms, I modeled them in more detail and dimensioned all the critical masonry measurements. I had the drawing to the masons the next day.

For more information on the project, you can visit the project's website and you can see reports of the construction progress on Jim Fanjoy’s Peace Corps blog. Jim, thank you for sharing all the information about your use of SketchUp on this project.

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Team

SketchUp training for kitchen & bath designers

Tasha Danko — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000

If you’re a kitchen & bath designer who’s interested in learning more about using SketchUp in your workflow, this one’s for you. Our SketchUp Authorized Training Center friends at School are planning a Designer Bootcamp for late May. You’ll learn how to use SketchUp Pro, LayOut and the 3D Warehouse to make your process easier, more efficient and more fun.

WHEN: May 26, 27 and 28 , 2010
WHERE: Orlando, Florida, USA
HOW MUCH: $699 for the 3-day event (18 hours of hands-on training)

For more information, check out School’s blog post about the event.

Posted by Shara Greenlee, SketchUp ATC Program Manager

Up close and personal

Tasha Danko — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:55:00 +0000

We’re happy to announce that Nashville, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Dallas are the newest additions to the family of Google Earth cities with high-quality 3D imagery. Exploring some of America’s most well-known cities from the comfort of your own computer just got even easier, and it also got more fun!

Whether exploring Nashville’s music venues along 2nd and Broadway, Indy’s Monument Circle in the heart of downtown, Charlotte’s diverse and numerous museums, or Dallas’s architecturally rich historic districts, the updated high quality 3D imagery will make you feel like you’re really there.

Give it a go in Google Earth or watch the video below for an up close tour!

Posted by Catherine Moats, 3D Modeling Specialist

Last call to cast your vote!

Tasha Danko — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:25:00 +0000

April is coming to a close, and you can still add your vote (if you haven’t already done so) for the best town in the Google Model Your Town Competition. On May 1, 2010 at midnight PST the voting page will be closed. We'll announce the winner on May 14th. The winner will be one of the following five finalists:

Barranco (Lima, Peru)
Braunschweig (Niedersachsen, Germany)
Donostia - San Sebastián (Gipuzkoa, Spain)
Dursley (Gloucestershire, United Kingdom)
West Palm Beach (Florida, United States)

Voice your opinion. Vote now!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp Team

Case Study: McCarthy Building Company

Tasha Danko — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:40:00 +0000

McCarthy Building Companies uses SketchUp Pro to streamline and enhance current processes which increase collaboration, improve quality, and reduce cost. Below is an excerpt of a case study we received from McCarthy. Visit our website to read the complete case study (and see more models).

McCarthy serves its clients with the latest technologies to solve their toughest construction challenges. We're true builders who utilize technology to augment our hands-on experience. That combination ensures clients get greater control—from preconstruction to completion. On-time scheduling, higher quality, safer projects, and better costs are just a few of the ways customers benefit from this unique approach. McCarthy also has a nationwide network of builder specialists, yet we maintain permanent offices in local markets too. That means we deliver expert solutions leveraging national best practices, plus strong sub-contractor relationships locally to help lower client cost and drive better results. It also means we have adeeply-felt obligation to give back to the community in every city we work in from coast to coast.

Challenge
Buildings and jobsites are becoming more and more congested and difficult to envision from just a set of 2D drawings. Designers and Engineers are creating structures in a 3D environment for placement in a 3D world. Building systems are rapidly evolving to implement new technologies that have not yet been implemented into construction before; resulting in challenging interfaces. It is no longer acceptable to go into a meeting with an owner with a hand-drawn site logistics plan. As a result of these challenges, McCarthy has instituted the use of Google SketchUp as a virtual construction tool to adapt and overcome to the challenges of the ever-evolving construction environment of the 21st century.

While working in conjunction with BSA LifeStructures this model, presented through LayOut,
was used to communicate the site logistics during construction.

Solution

McCarthy is committed to continuous innovative improvements to our building process. Utilizing SketchUp, our teams have been able to convey critical information in all phases from pre-construction to close-out, enhancing our Virtual Design and Construction services.

Site logistics - We have found that by creating a site logistics plan utilizing SketchUp, we can now show owners where we will be, and how it will impact their employees and clients.

RFIs and Virtual Mock-Ups - Our field staff is now finding solutions virtually, using SketchUp for RFI’s, mock-ups, self-perform concrete, and other details.

Virtual Construction Visualization - SketchUp has also been used to create concrete lift drawings to help the trades visualize the task from start to finish – potentially catching any accidental omissions before starting actual construction.

Results
By modeling our RFI’s, site logistics plans, building mock-ups, self-perform concrete, and many other details, we have found increased efficiency, better quality, and reduced costs. The aforementioned products have allowed us to improve our relationships with Owners, Architects and Subcontractors creating a collaborative environment that is beneficial to all parties.

As a leader in BIM technology, our vision is clear and we have been able to reduce cost by utilizing SketchUp to pass those savings onto our owners. One of the reasons Google SketchUp is such a powerful tool at McCarthy is the small learning curve and low cost. Most of the BIM systems out there have a larger learning curve and higher price. SketchUp’s ease of use and the availability of extensive online training, has allowed our teams to remain on-site and implement their new tools faster. SketchUp has allowed our quality department to standardize and visualize our best practices for our Building Enclosure Program, allowing these models to be used as a baseline for future projects. McCarthy holds an annual SketchUp contest throughout the company to enhance SketchUp’s use. Google SketchUp is now being utilized in almost every department from owner presentations to RFI’s. SketchUp has allowed us to continue to have the hands-on approach we need to be the best builder in America.

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Pro Team

New Earth view highlights 3D buildings

Tasha Danko — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:45:00 +0000

Earlier this week Google announced the new Earth view in Google Maps. Earth view uses the Google Earth plugin to show 3D buildings, imagery, and terrain in the browser on Google Maps.

The Google Boulder office (where Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker are developed) is particularly excited how 3D buildings modeled by the Google SketchUp community are used to demonstrate the new Earth view feature.

By clicking on the “Use Earth view” link in Google Maps, you can see a tour of 36 famous places and landmarks around the world -- 24 of those are 3D buildings created with Google SketchUp.

You can see who created the models by clicking on the author link next to the thumbnail image. This will open a new browser window that displays all of the 3D models created by that author.

Congratulations to all the geo-modelers whose 3D models were featured in the launch!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

More sharing options in the 3D Warehouse

Tasha Danko — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:05:00 +0000

When we recently added some sharing options to the Google 3D Warehouse there was one we were itching to add (the support wasn’t yet public so we couldn’t): Google Buzz. Two weeks later, the Buzz team did its job (you may have seen their recent blog post) and we're pleased to support sharing with Google Buzz on the 3D Warehouse. As an added bonus, we also added support for MySpace (found under the “Share” dropdown).

Here's a tip for those of you who like to share our "swivel view" of your 3D model: If you add Google Reader as a connected site to Google Buzz, you get swivel view in Buzz. Open Google Buzz and look for the “connected sites” link:

Click the link and make sure Google Reader is added. Then, share a model you find in the 3D Warehouse with Reader (it’s the 2nd icon in the list). You’ll see your Reader share now appears in Buzz - complete with swivel!

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager

Earth view comes to Google Maps

Tasha Danko — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Five years ago, shortly after Google’s acquisition of Keyhole, we introduced the first integration of Keyhole technology into Google Maps -- Satellite view. Suddenly, you could see what places actually looked like from the air, and easily switch between this view and the map view. Mapping has never been the same. A few months later, the desktop Google Earth application was released, and now we have over 600 million downloads. Today we are proud to announce the next major step in the marriage between Google Earth and Google Maps -- Earth view.

Those of you who aren’t as familiar with Google Earth might be wondering how Earth view differs from the satellite view that’s currently available in Maps. First of all, Earth view offers a true three-dimensional perspective, which lets you experience mountains in full detail, 3D buildings, and first-person dives beneath the ocean. The motion is fluid, and you can see the world from any viewpoint. Because Earth view is built right into Maps, you can switch back to cartographic view simply by clicking on the “Map” button. The view will even adjust automatically to a top-down, north-heading perspective as you transition. In essence, you now have all the best mapping tools at your fingertips, all in one place.

New to 3D? We’ve collected some cool places around the world for you to explore with a single click. Ever been to the Taj Mahal? How about the Sydney Opera house, or South Africa’s Table Mountain? You can even dive under the ocean and check out the wreckage of the Titanic. Just click one of the icons in the left panel and you’ll be flown from space down to your chosen location, which you can explore further by clicking and dragging the map or by using the navigation controls in the top of the view. We have 36 places set aside for you to explore, and you can cycle through them by clicking the "More places" link. We've also included a short video introduction to Earth view.

Earth view uses the same technology that powers the Google Earth desktop application. It allows you to view the same high-resolution imagery, terrain, and 3D cityscapes, all from right within your browser. We built the new Earth view on the Google Earth API and browser plugin, which make it easy for web developers to include Google Earth in their own websites. If you’ve already installed Google Earth, you can start using Earth view right away. Otherwise, with one click you can download and install the browser plugin and you’ll be ready to start exploring in 3D. The Earth plugin is currently supported on most Windows and Mac web browsers.

Get started today by going to maps.google.com/earthview, and explore your world in 3D.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager

Discussions in the 3D Warehouse

Tasha Danko — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Many of you are aware that there is a Google Group for geo-modeling enthusiasts. In the Group, folks help each other learn how to model for Google Earth, share tips and tricks, and get questions answered from the Google team.

We're enthusiastic about these discussions and happy to announce that we’ve improved the connection to the Google 3D Warehouse. Now, if you visit the 3D Warehouse in English you'll see links that previously took you to Google Groups will now go to a new page: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/forum (you can also find this link labeled “Forum” at the bottom of every page).

If you’ve visited our group previously, don’t worry, everything is still there - you're still signed up, the discussions are still there, and you will continue to receive email notifications if you had those set up. What we’ve added is a new, fast, and inviting way to browse and participate in the modeling community.

Some of you may have seen this in the Map Your World Community site we announced a few months ago. Same discussions, different home.

We’d like to know what you think! We’re working hard to add features to the discussion interface, and invite you to give us feedback. I’ve started a topic where you should feel free to participate.

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager

St Louis is now available in Building Maker

Tasha Danko — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 03:30:00 +0000

Today, we’re pleased to announce the “Gateway to the West”, Saint Louis, Missouri, is available for modeling in Google Building Maker. Building Maker is a fun, easy-to-use 3D modeling tool for adding 3D buildings to Google Earth. Choose St. Louis from the drop down menu and then pick your location to start modeling with photos that we provide.

Please keep in mind that even if a 3D model already exists in the the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth - the best model wins. To see the existing 3D models, click on the Earth button in top right corner. If you can improve on what’s already there, here’s your chance!

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager

Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth

Tasha Danko — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:30:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

[From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company join us here. – Ed.]

In January 2009, NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization of New York City, launched nycgo.com and opened an information center that makes it easier for visitors and residents to explore all the vibrancy, excitement and diversity of New York City's five boroughs.

Mirroring the integrated Google Maps on the website, our highly interactive Official NYC Information Center in Midtown Manhattan includes Google Maps–based Interactive Map Tables where you can plan your visit and a beautiful Video Wall featuring 3D imagery of New York City in Google Earth that lets you “fly” through your selected itinerary. Since we opened our doors, thousands of tourists have virtually explored New York in our center before venturing out on their own.

When Google let us know that they would be releasing new, high-quality 3D imagery of New York City, we were excited to help spread the word. The new imagery will be an amazing improvement to our already-stunning Video Wall and will help us to reach our goals in making New York City more accessible to visitors and residents alike. The detail at the street level, as you’ll see in the video below, makes it easier than ever to virtually experience our variety of cultural institutions, storefronts and residential and commercial buildings.

We invite you to come by the Information Center to see for yourself, or to power up Google Earth and explore the Big Apple from your desktop or phone.

Posted by George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company

The 3D Warehouse goes social

Tasha Danko — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Are you proud of your work? Now you can share it with your friends, followers, family or anyone in your social network.

Today we introduced a new feature in the Google 3D Warehouse that allows you to quickly and easily share 3D models using popular social networking applications including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and of course our very own Google Reader.

The ability to share news stories, videos and other Internet content has been around for a while (we use it ourselves on YouTube), so we thought our avid modeling community might enjoy sharing 3D models. You’ll find the new Share feature in the top-right corner on the model details page (like this one).

In most cases we simply incorporate the model name and a link to the Google 3D Warehouse into the respective social application, like Twitter for example:

With Google Reader however we went a step further by including swivel-views:

We’ll be enhancing this feature in the very near future, but we wanted to let you start sharing as soon as possible.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Model Your Town finalists announced: Cast your vote!

Tasha Danko — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:30:00 +0000

OK folks -- it’s time to vote for your favorite 3D town. The submission phase of the Google Model Your Town Competition is over and the five finalists have been selected. Without further ado, they are (in alphabetical order):

Barranco, Lima, Peru
Modeler: Jorge De Albertis
Barranco’s collection of models

Braunschweig, Niedersachsen, Germany
Modeler: Leonhard Pröttel
Braunschweig’s collection of models

Donostia - San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain
Modelers: Pedro Domecq Aguirre, Eneka Mujica, Gabriel Garcia, Jan Wesbuer, Fermin Saraseta
Donostia - San Sebastián’s collection of models

Dursley, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Modeler: John Wilkes
Dursley’s collection of models

West Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Modeler: Chris Sardinas
West Palm Beach’s collection of models

This overview video flies to each of the finalist towns:

On the voting page, you’ll find a separate one-minute video tour for each town, as well as a link to a KML file that you can use to see the models in Google Earth. Take a look at everything, decide which you think is best, then weigh in -- you have until May 1st, 2010 to cast your vote.

Congratulations to the finalists and to all of the teams who submitted entries. Choosing the top five certainly wasn’t an easy task. As you can see from this collection of the teams who entered, the competition was tough. Good luck!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie and Aidan Chopra, Google SketchUp Team

Featured Modeler: Sami Araboghli

Tasha Danko — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:20:00 +0000

Anyone can build 3D models for Google Earth -- no matter how old they are. Eighth grader Sami Araboghli of Sarasota, Florida is a case in point. Sami wants to put the entire world on Google Earth one building at a time. Currently, he has 179 models in the Google 3D Warehouse.

When Sami first started using Google Earth, he noticed lots of 3D buildings popping up and wanted to see his own models appear. After finding Google SketchUp, he started investigating how to take the models from his computer and share them with everyone else in Google Earth. After his first effort was not accepted for inclusion, Sami started researching ways to improve his models. He now has 29 3D buildings (and counting) accepted into Google Earth’s default 3D Buildings layer.

Sami starts his modeling experience by using Google Maps to find a building that interests him. In most cases, he hasn’t physically visited these locations; Sami uses Street View in Google Maps to acquire the imagery he needs (this video shows how). The first model he created with this method was a Citroën car dealership in Prague, Czech Republic.

Sami says: “I want to be heard, and to tell people that anyone -- no matter how old you are -- can put buildings on Google Earth and they too can be heard.”

Sami describes Google SketchUp and Google Earth as his favorite software applications; sometimes he spends the entire day making buildings. He loves the idea of being able to put buildings in Google Earth and share them with friends. Says Sami, “I think it was one of Google's coolest ideas.”

Sami also told us that he will be in the National Geographic Florida State Geography Bee competition on April 9th. Good luck Sami!

Posted by Greg Wirt, Google SketchUp Team

Explore the world with new iGoogle themes

Tasha Danko — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:10:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

Today the iGoogle team announced a new set of themes designed for the world traveler in all of us. There are 25 themes that highlight places around the world and include beautiful scenery, historic monuments, exotic beaches, iconic cities, and breathtaking sites.

In addition to partnering with National Geographic Society, LIFE, Lonely Planet, UNESCO, and visiteurope.com to bring you the stunning imagery featured in most of the themes, we also created a couple of themes using imagery from Google Earth.

The 3D Cities in Google Earth theme puts you in the middle of the action in New York City and Tokyo. It transports you to the ancient ruins of Athens, Greece, and takes you down under to Melbourne, Australia. It also gives you a glimpse into the historic architecture of Budapest, Hungary; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Vienna, Austria.

The 3D Views in Google Earth theme gives you a birds-eye view of a couple of natural wonders in the Unites States -- the Grand Canyon and the Great Lakes. It transports you to the last of the remaining Seven Wonders of the Ancient World -- the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. And you can view the stunning architecture of the Taj Mahal in India. Lastly, relax in Positano, Italy, or Bondi Beach, Australia.

We hope that you enjoy our new iGoogle themes and that they’ll help inspire you to keep exploring the world around you.

Posted by Anita Barci, Product Marketing Manager

Tour the March Madness arenas in 3D

Tasha Danko — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Hello college basketball fans! It’s March and that means March Madness is in full swing. 65 teams were pitted against each other in this single elimination tournament to decide the 2010 NCAA Men's College Basketball Championship. In getting into the spirit of the season, Google launched a College Basketball webpage to see the latest results, get live information on teams, manage your bracket, and tour 3D models of the arenas.

Here at the SketchUp office, we gathered 14 models of the arenas and added them to a Featured Collection. These models are located all over the country, and largely created by users like you. Especially cool is the model of the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City, where you can fly inside and see the interior of the model! Both the Edward Jones Dome and the HSBC Arena are great examples of high quality photo-texturing, and the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was created using Google Building Maker.

We also put together a 3D tour (kml file) of these arenas for Google Earth 5. You can see the relation of the cities to one another and explore the surrounding 3D models. Creating a tour like this is a snap with the touring feature in Google Earth 5.

So explore the collection, enjoy the tour and hopefully rejoice in how well your bracket still looks.

Posted by Adam Hecht, 3D Data Specialist

Dortmund, Germany in 3D

Tasha Danko — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

We’re happy to announce that the city of Dortmund, Germany is now in 3D - with Google Earth. The new 3D building models extend from the city center to the edge of the Westfalenpark, an area of open space where locals visit to “wandern”.

Like many medieval cities, Dortmund is punctuated with churches and other relics that have a history dating back to the Holy Roman Empire. An example would be the Petrikirche (St. Petri Church), which was built in the middle of the 14th century. The church was modeled by geo-modeler “chrischibuilder” using Google Building Maker.

The tallest structure in this northern German city is the Florianturm, a TV tower with a height of 219.6 metres that sits at the center of the Westfalenpark. The tower was modeled by geo-modeler “Zeitreise Ruhr” using Google SketchUp. Watch our video to fly to the tower and other landmarks in Dortmund. We invite you to start exploring Dortmund in 3D!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Using SketchUp to create hand renderings

Tasha Danko — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:16:00 +0000

This case study was submitted by Michelle Morelan, an interior designer in Vancouver, B.C. I first discovered Michelle's SketchUp drawings on her blog, A Schematic Life. We have posted the first part of her case study below, but continue reading it on our website to see additional designs and to learn how she uses Google SketchUp in her unique workflow.

At Michelle Morelan Design, we offer a full range of Interior Design services: interior planning and design, renovations, and project management. You can choose from full design services or e-design.

We use SketchUp from importing site dimensions through schematics and design, and onto working drawings. The great thing about SketchUp is it gives you instant feedback. What would the accents look like in red?...where should I put them?…how long and thick should this wall be?…even what it looks like to walk from one space to another. It also blurs the line between schematic and working drawings, because you build and design to scale. This means you can use the same model for working out the design as for contract documents or working drawings, saving lots of time. With the use of a section plane, by turning off the perspective view and adding dimensions, you take the drawing to that next level.

One thing that's different about the way we use the software are the hybrid drawings that have become our specialty. Our firm has created a niche by building 3D models and rendering perspectives for other designers and homeowners, as well as creating stunning and precise visuals for our own firm’s presentations. Continue reading...

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Sales Team

Green design in the Mt. Annan Botanic Garden

Tasha Danko — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000

We received this story from Kennedy Associates Architects in Australia through the SketchUp Go Green! website. Read below for their story on how they used Google SketchUp for their project and watch an animated video.

The Bowden Centre is a new educational and multipurpose resource building at Mount Annan Botanic Garden, Sydney NSW. The building’s primary purpose is to provide a teaching facility for the numerous school groups who visit the garden every year -- a place to learn about the garden and Australian flora. However, the facility has also been designed to accommodate a broad range of other activities, from seminars to weddings.

The brief for the project, the first permanent building at the Botanic Garden, was to set the benchmark for future buildings on the estate and to provide a unique multi-function facility that demonstrates high standards of ecological sustainability, within a very modest budget.

This was achieved through, amongst other things, siting the new building in the location of an existing structure, recycling the steel structure and aluminum windows from the earlier building, the use of low maintenance materials, the thermal management of the building via a ground coupled, water based air conditioning system and the inclusion of a series of plywood clad, vertical wall openings that act as alternatives to conventionally glazed windows.

What prompted us to spend the time building the SketchUp model was that we were preparing a talk about the building and wanted a method to explain concepts behind the building design. We set upon using the SketchUp animations as a way of bringing these concepts to life, particularly through the use of the sectional animations. We now regularly use SketchUp animations as a presentation tool to present models built in our CAD package.

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Go Green Team

Shooting for three: Keeping up with the Madness

Tasha Danko — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long blog)

Do you feel it, sports fans? Has the anticipation fully gripped your college basketball soul? It's definitely got my attention. Therefore I've embarked on my third consecutive journey into mapping the NCAA College Basketball tournament. This may have caused a bit of personal March madness - a lot of long nights and triple-checking each arena placemark - but I hope you’ll enjoy the result. I’ve made a Google Earth KMZ file that includes the home arenas of the field of 65, and the 14 tournament venues. Each entry in the field of 65 is color coded by region and the game sites have a special basketball icon this year.

You may wonder why I’ve kept this up for three years. Well, aside from the fundamental fact that I'm a college hoops nut, I just so happen to also love seeing the geo-spatial distribution of the teams. The research and compliation of the information led me to several interesting facts you can see for yourself in the layer and then use to wow your friends, such as:

There are two first-round matchups that pit two teams which have the same mascots
Bears, Eagles, Gophers, Grizzlies, and Lions have a common trait: they are all 'Golden'
This year’s tournament is quite colorful: Blue Devils, Mean Green, Orangemen, Big Red, and Yellow Jackets

This My Map also shows you all the key locations for the Madness, color-coded for your viewing pleasure. The East division is indicated by a blue pin; South with green; Midwest with red; and West with cyan. The pins with a dot in the center tell you who the #1 seeds are. View the College Basketball Tournament 2010 in a large map.

Travel to the tournament without leaving home! All 14 arenas are in the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth, ready for you to explore. Take a tour of these 3D models by watching the video below or download this kml tour and open it in Google Earth 5. Be sure to check out the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City -- even the court is modeled.

Also, teaming up with a few other March Madness enthusiasts, we’ve created a page, google.com/collegebasketball2010, where all of you basketball fans can find additional Google tools to help you track the tournament. Keep up with your favorite teams and get up-to-date information on scores, schedules, and brackets with our iGoogle gadget. By doing a quick search for your favorite team, you can see live scores. If you haven’t already made a bracket, check out our Google docs tournament bracket template to help you create and manage your pool in an online spreadsheet. You can also see real time search results so you never miss any March Madness news or chatter!

For all the times when I can’t be planted in front of my television watching the action (or during those pesky commercial breaks), these tools will keep my head in the game!

Posted by Adam Hughes, Google Apps Senior Strategist and College Hoops Fan

Towns galore!

Tasha Danko — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0000

The deadline for entries to the Google Model Your Town Competition has passed and we’ve received some stunning town models. Over 160 teams entered and we’ve gathered many of the collections in an official Competition Collection you can peruse now. The five finalists have been notified and they will be publicly announced on April 1st. Cast your vote for your favorite town between April 1st and May 1st on the voting page that will be live on the competition site. We’ll announce the winning town on or around May 15th. Stay tuned!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google Model Your Town Competition Team

Final Maintenance Release for SketchUp Pro 6

Tasha Danko — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:33:00 +0000

As promised, we’ve got one final maintenance release for all you folks who just can’t let go of your SketchUp Pro 6 install. We found a few niggling bugs and some outstanding security issues to fix, so we thought we’d spin one last build for you. This free upgrade is recommended for all SketchUp Pro 6 users, and is now available for download now. This maintenance release contains no new features, and none of the performance improvements we made in SketchUp 7. It’s just a few bug fixes.

For those of you keeping count, this is the sixth maintenance release we’ve done for SketchUp 6 since it launched in January 2007. That’s been just over three years that we’ve been maintaining SketchUp 6, and it is time for us to move on. From this point forward, we’re focusing all our attention on SketchUp 7 and beyond.

If you’re still using SketchUp Pro 6, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to SketchUp Pro 7.1. Upgrades cost $95, and we can get you up and running with a minimum of fuss on our latest, fastest and most stable release ever.

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Product Manager

Barcelona in 3D

Tasha Danko — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:41:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

Today, Barcelona joins its Spanish neighbors Madrid and Valencia as 3D cities in Google Earth. If you’re a fan of architecture, Barcelona offers a visual feast. The mix of old and new is truly facinating. It contains architectural wonders that date back to medieval times, in addition to modern architecture designed by critically acclaimed architects.

Open Google Earth and fly down to Barcelona to see hundreds of 3D models of buildings, monuments, cathedrals, museums, statues, towers and much more. If time was short, my guided tour would probably start at what is arguably the most famous building in the city, the Sagrada Familia. Staying with the cathedral theme I’d head over to the Barcelona Cathedral located in the center of the city. The Casa Milà would be next on my list. This amazing work of art was designated a World Heritage site in 1984.

If modern architecture is more to your liking, you’ll want to visit the Montjuic Communications Tower and the Torre Agbar (which shouldn’t be too hard to find given its unique shape). I could go on, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, we’ve created a short video (above) that showcases many of Barcelona’s most popular destinations. Judging by the thousands of models that users have created using Google SketchUp and Building Maker, I think it’s pretty evident that I’m not the only admirer of this wonderful city.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

City visualizes projects through 3D tours

Tasha Danko — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:18:00 +0000

3D fly-overs and walk-thoughs are a great way to communicate and inform to an audience. This type of digital communication is becoming more accessible and prevalent in the work we do and Glen Cove, New York wants to see more of it.

I recently discovered this news article about the city of Glen Cove requiring 3D tours for all large development project proposals. With this requirement, they hope to gain a better understanding of how projects will impact their community. It's great to see cities using 3D in their community.

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Sales Team

Cities in 3D Case Study: Fredericton, Canada

Tasha Danko — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:10:00 +0000

Cities and local governments around the world are beginning to realize that it takes more than a traditional website to get discovered. Millions of people around the world are touring the planet or searching for businesses through free geospatial tools like Google Earth and Google Maps. Imagery, terrain, and 3D models all help these virtual visitors to formulate a picture in their mind.

The City of Fredericton uses Google Earth for city planning and other official uses. They had access to 3D building data so when they learned about Google's Cities in 3D Program they offered to contribute their data to Google in the hope that it might appear in Google Earth. In addition to Google Earth, 3D data contributed to Google is used to display 3D buildings in Google Maps, which will benefit anyone trying to find a specific location in the City. If you're a city or local government, have access to 3D data, and would like to "get on the virtual map", we encourage you to learn more by visiting our Cities in 3D Program website.

About Fredericton
The City of Fredericton is the riverfront Capital of the province of New Brunswick, which is one of four provinces that make up Atlantic Canada. The population of New Brunswick is around 750,000 with urban and suburban areas extending into rural. The population of the city is 50,535; with a total of 85,688 people living in Greater Fredericton. Fredericton was named the Capital in 1785.

Today, Greater Fredericton is home to more than 70% of New Brunswick´s Information Technology industries. The city is the New Brunswick centre for information technology, engineering and environmental technology industries. Fredericton is also home to two universities (St. Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick) and a variety of training colleges and institutes.

Fredericton offers a balanced lifestyle to its residents, with abundant recreational and cultural amenities. The City is an ISO 9001:2008 certified organization delivering more than 150 programs and services to residents and visitors alike.

Fredericton was added to the Smart 7 Communities List for 2009 by the Intelligent Community Forums - for the second year in a row. Environmental awareness is top of mind for the City of Fredericton. In 2009, the City was named a national leader in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Fredericton is only one of four Canadian cities to achieve the highest level of program requirements for greenhouse gas measurement and reduction in municipal operations in Canada.

Other awards and recognitions that the city has won include:

"Cultural Capital of Canada" 2009 (Government of Canada)
"Top Five Renovator-Friendly Cities in Canada" 2009 (Canadian Contractor Magazine)
"Fourth Best City for Families in Canada" 2009 (Who's Your City - Richard Florida)
"One of Canada's Best Places to Live" 2009, 2008 & 2007 (MoneySense)
"City of Fredericton National Leader in the Partners for Climate Protection Program” 2009 FCM

Fredericton & Cities in 3D Program
Rob Lunn, GIS Coordinator for the City, told us that he discovered the Google Earth 3D building models and SketchUp utility at the GeoWeb Conference in 2008. City employees were already using Google Earth for work or personal purposes.

Rob Lunn said, "I knew there was a program to upload data to Google and getting data to Google was a big initiative for us. We wanted to find avenues to release available data and information to be public at large and the Cities in 3D Program seemed like a perfect solution."

"We decided to go through the Cities in 3D Program because of time and having Google folks involved helped speed it up. We want our city to be discoverable through Google as well as through our local website. But if there are people going straight to Google, we want them to discover it there too."

History of Sharing
The City of Fredericton has a partnership with the local Military in New Brunswick, Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. The CFB Gagetown is one of the largest military bases in Canada. "We provided data for creating models (building footprints with heights, DEM, aerial photography, oblique angle aerial photography collected by a firm with an ultra light plane and street level photography) and they built up the data sets. The group is the Army Learning Support Center for Tactics School and one of the largest bases in Canada," says Rob Lunn. This high-tech military group took this model and integrated it into a first person tactics game. They wanted a real life model for training purposes.

"We also meet PSAB (Public Sector Accounting Board) legislation for tracking assets. From a city perspective, we have to know the tree cover, quantity of trees, park benches, how many meters of sidewalks, how many meters of sewer pipes, etc. We truly have to know what we have because they have to be accounted for. There's an expense and you have to replace the sidewalk, etc. We have to have a good understanding of what we own."

Fredericton in Google Earth
"Of course, we're interested in promoting Fredericton and have people discover the 3D models, that's wonderful for us. For staff it is important to be able to see the impact that buildings or other structures (e.g signage) have on the streetscape. Right now, we're using the models more for tourism and economic development, but plan to expand into more areas. What motivated us to contribute our data was the opportunity to make the information available to a wider audience through a tool (Google Earth) that they are already using.

Over 100 photo-textured 3D buildings in Fredericton were added to Google Earth in January 2010. The buildings included government offices, commercial buildings and parking structures. To visit Fredericton, download Google Earth and search for "Fredericton, Canada" and make sure the "3D Buildings" layer is checked.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Cities in 3D Team

Athens, Greece in 3D

Tasha Danko — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:50:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

No knowledge is ever wasted. In college I took three semesters of Greek civilization because I thought it was nifty (and apparently I also had some plan involving never graduating, but that eventually fell through). Although this makes me more fun at parties than I'd otherwise be, I have had no practical use for the information. Until now!

We're pleased to announce the addition of Athens, Greece to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. No trip to virtual Athens would be complete without a visit to the Parthenon. The architecture of the Parthenon is fascinating; all of its lines exhibit subtle curvature (the columns, for example, are slightly convex) in order to avoid the optical illusion of concavity resulting from parallel lines viewed at a distance. While you're on the Acropolis, duck over to the Herodeion Theater, where for almost two thousand years music and theater performances have been held -- check out its schedule during the Athens Festival.

With the 2010 Winter Olympics in progress, naturally the site of the revival of the modern Olympics comes to mind. The 1896 Summer Olympics were held here; also, check out the Athens Olympic Stadium and sports complex constructed for the 2004 Summer Olympics. If your tastes run more towards archaeology, there's the Archaeological Museum, where you can see the Antikythera Mechanism among many other artifacts. Count on a geek to be interested in ancient mechanical computers...

Enjoy!

Posted by Allison Floyd, Software Engineer

How are you using LayOut?

Tasha Danko — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:52:00 +0000

Over the years, we've gotten to know a lot about how our customers are using SketchUp Pro. What we've learned has helped us to educate professionals in other, related fields, and has done a lot to influence the development of our product. In short, we love to see what you do with the tools we make.

When it comes to LayOut -- SketchUp Pro's 2D companion app -- I think there's an opportunity for us to learn even more. Since LayOut 2 launched in late 2008, we've seen a huge increase in usage, but we don't have as many user stories as we'd like. We want to know more about how folks are using LayOut, and we want to see (and show off) more examples of the inspiring work that's being done.

If you're using LayOut, we'd love for you to take the time to tell us how: Please submit a case study (it doesn't need to be very long) by following the instructions at the bottom of our Case Studies web page. We'll do our best to feature your work on our blog, in the SketchUpdate newsletter, and on our website. Any architectural LayOut documents that we receive may also be showcased in our booth at the AIA National Conference this year -- fame and glory in Miami!

This is a great way to get your name out into the community; you'll also be helping us to understand more about the uses of LayOut in a variety of industries. To submit, just check out our Case Studies web page. When you're attaching files, it would be great to have your original LayOut file; it makes printing a whole lot easier (don't worry -- we won't share your original files with anyone).

One more thing: You can also find great examples of other people's submissions by filltering this blog for User Stories. Thanks, and we can’t wait to see what you’ve done.

Posted by Nancy Trigg, Manager Sales and Operations, SketchUp Pro

3D Buildings get smart

Tasha Danko — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:33:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

The 3D buildings in Google Earth are a great way to understand an area visually, and they just got better at conveying information about the place itself. Currently, you can click on model that was created by 3D modelers using tools like Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker to open a balloon.

Today, we've added two new sections to those balloons: Photos of nearby places and Nearby places.

Not only can you learn more about the place from the balloon, but you can also dig deeper by following the links. Want to see more nearby photos and places? What to learn about the Ferry Building listed as a nearby place? Click the links in the balloon to explore further.

Next time you're exploring a city with 3D buildings, watch for the familiar glow as you hover over a building, and give it a click. You might learn something new about the place.

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager