The collection of 3D models from the City of Berlin released yesterday are fantastic! Over 44,000 buildings – nearly 10% of the city is available. So, I spent some time learning a bit about the city and created the following 5 minute video using Google Earth and the new 3D models (more details below). All kinds of interesting things to see, the video here has just a few highlights:
The Berlin collection is even better than the Denver and Las Vegas collections I demonstrated a few days ago. Read my story from yesterday for details on the Berlin collection or just download the link
to see the buildings yourself inside Google Earth 4. These large collections of 3D models can demand a lot of resources. You should have a relatively new computer and/or a fast video graphic card (with lots of memory) if you want to see faster performance. In my video, I’m using a relatively new computer designed for 3D gaming.Related: See also the video demo of the Swiss Alps.
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.
Nice one Frank! great tour 🙂 I had seen the train station but those other areas are utterly amazing too! keep up the good work 🙂
i’m very happy that the berlin project wasn’t an empty promise as hamburg was… to announce something in january and not deliver by now is pretty embarrassing. i don’t get it that hamburg didn’t at least release updates on why they have to postpone their release to GE…
the berlin VR 3d city model is a great addition to GE and shows what might be possible in GE in the future. i was amazed to see that mr. dietmar hopp of SAP corp (largest business s/w producer) was behind this release. one of the institutions he sponsors is behind this 3d model;-)
I wonder how could I improve my google earth performance. Everytime I load a bunch of 3d buildings it slows down big time, I have no problem playing 3d videogames though
Pentium 4 3.4MHz,1 GB RAM, Geforce 7800GT PCI-E 256MB RAM.
I’m completly amazed. I’m hoping that Denmark will do the same for Copenhagen.
But one thing puzzles me – why is all the buildings below terrain surface?
Kindly
Jesper
Jesper, you should check your GE “Tools->Options->3D View->Elevation Exaggeration” The elevation exaggeration should be set to 1.0.
Hi gulo,
Try reading the following blog entry about enhancing graphics in Google Earth. You might want to try reducing terrain quality, turning off anti-aliasing, and anisotropic filtering to see if that helps. With your machine specifications, it should run pretty well even with those settings turned on though.
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/11/enhanced_graphics_se.html
Hi Frank,
great video! Though I think the best way to watch the buildings is to turn the terrain completely off. As seen in your video, some of the buildings are “sinking” into the ground. Unfortunately, I’m not able to check it out myself in Google Earth, cause the kml file from your link isn’t working. Every time I click on the links at http://www.3d-stadtmodell-berlin.de/3d/en/seite0.jsp I’m going into a kind of loop. Maybe you can post the kml file here in your blog or an alternative link that’s working.
Hi MiG,
The sinking into the ground is partly an artifact that the default resolution of the terrain for GE is too low. This is a problem we will see increasingly when adding 3D buildings – especially for cities which are on hilly terrain. We can only hope Google will get higher resolution terrain data for cities.
With regards to the “loop” problem. Apparently the City of Berlin’s servers are still having a problem with the number of people trying to view the data. Keep trying the link and you will eventually get in.
Frank
Hi, everybody.
I’m completly amazed. I’m hoping that Denmark will do the same for Copenhagen.
But one thing puzzles me – why is all the buildings below terrain surface?
Great tour! You really know how to fly around Google Earth!
Great tour! You really know how to fly around Google Earth!
Jesper, you should check your GE “Tools->Options->3D View->Elevation Exaggeration” The elevation exaggeration should be set to 1.0.
Wow, that’s pretty cool. It’s amazing the technology that goes into this sort of stuff,,, but why Berlin?