Sunday, April 17, 2011

Google Erf

Been a while since I used Google Earth, so it's the first time I've seen the 3D buildings effect. Pretty cool. It won't be so dang long before we have a detailed and realistic model of most of the planet. Exciting or scary.

But from there, imagine, there's a quite a step to having a real-time view of everywhere. That would require billions of cameras everywhere. Perhaps not quite as many as the UK government already has installed in the UK, but well up there.

BTW, I wonder if anybody is working on a commercial venture, which is to make detailed computer models of cities and landscapes, real and imagined, good enough to rent out for use in in CG and feature movies! That could be good business. There should be no reason for each company to re-invent the spoon every time they need it.

4 comments:

Timo Lehtinen said...

I wonder if anybody is working on a commercial venture, which is to make detailed computer models of cities and landscapes.

There are many creators of 3D models of cities and landscapes, real and imaginary.

There are also marketplaces that bring together creators and users of such models. See for example TurboSquid.com.

These sort of ventures have existed for at least two decades, and the field is very lively and active, not to mention a healthy business. Your question is a bit like asking if there are companies selling digitizations of typefaces.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yeah, but I always listen to the DVD commentaries of CGI movies I've watched (many), and it seems they all create their own sceneries and such from scratch. They always point out that every little tiny bit of each scene has to be made by somebody. So maybe nobody just makes things up to snuff for feature movie use?

Timo Lehtinen said...

[...] it seems they all create their own sceneries and such from scratch.

Full scenes look old if you reuse them. When you spend hundreds of millions on a film, you don't want to use a scene that other film makers also have access to.

On the other hand, there's no point in recreating the models for mundane objects such as household items.

There are thousands of very high quality models on TurboSquid.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Okay. Thank you.