New 3D Buildings in Las Vegas

The recent layers update included some updates to the “3D Buildings->3DWarehouse” layer for GE 4. GEB reader Duncan Brinsmead sent in a comment saying Las Vegas has new buildings. It does indeed – fly to Las Vegas and turn on the layer. Over 50 models of the hotels and casinos including the Luxor, Paris (with Eiffel Tower), New York-New York, and the Stratosphere tower have been added (before there were only a couple fully textured models in Las Vegas). Almost all of the new 3D buildings were done by an outfit called Concept 3D. Interestingly, Concept3D is based in Boulder, Colorado and certainly has the expertise for doing SketchUp 3D modeling. Apparently the former CFO, two former board members, and a modeler from @Lastsoftware (the company which was bought by Google last year which made SketchUp) banded together and formed this new company which is offering 3D modeling services to “municipalities; home builders, commercial real estate developers; architectural firms; building product manufacturers, and state/federal government entities”. Apparently some of these folks didn’t want to work for a fast growing company like Google, but apparently they are still on good terms since these sample models were selected as “Best”. By the way, don’t forget you can still turn on the “Other buildings” and see hundreds of other buildings in Las Vegas in the old more simplistic (non-textured) style.

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

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