The new Google Building Maker is a website (a plugin version of Google’s SketchUp program) that allows you to help design and create the 3D buildings or landmarks for Google Earth. It is completely free to use and have fun with. Building Maker is launching for 50 cities on Google Earth, but plans to add more. It’s browser-based and can be used in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Building Maker is free and available in 14 languages.
To get the software you need to load up the Google Building Maker page and click to download a 3D plugin the loads right up in your browser. After that you are presented with a map where you can zoom right in to where you want to start designing. You zoom in on a Google Maps area of choice and then look for a placemark; afterwards, based on reference bird view imagery, you’ll start dropping rectangles and other shapes and align them with the real thing (and switch to a viewer tab to get a preview of your progress). Your model will be saved to the Google 3D Warehouse and then be reviewed for inclusion on Google Earth.

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Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm | by Kur-nia-one |