Comments on: How to Create an Aerial Panorama from Google Earth

How to Create an Aerial Panorama from Google Earth

nthdegx — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 07:09:08 -0800

How to Create an Aerial Panorama from Google Earth. The Digitally Distributed Environments blog, and others following their tutorial, have created Google Earth panoramas of Belgium, Moscow, Paris, New York, London and the Sydney Olympic Site. They also note Panogames, who use a similar process to create panoramas from videogame worlds. This follows their Frank Lloyd Wright architectural/videogame walkthrough demo using the Half Life 2 engine [mefi thread] following which they appear hard at work formalising a clear method for importing CAD models into Half Life 2 for architectural visualisations.

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 07:37:08 -0800

Could that Frank Lloyd Wright house get any more evil? I was half expecting a headcrab to jump out of one of the rooms. HL2 murkiness kinda kills the mood of the house, especially with the generator noise. Panoramas are cool, though.

By: hwestiii

hwestiii — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 07:44:36 -0800

Is the origin of the view modifiable or fixed? The New York one is initially over lower Manhattan. Is it possible to move to another location, say over Central Park?

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 09:02:29 -0800

Very cool - I too, love panoramas. I find the Google Earth rendition more useful though [one of the first things I did when a mac version became available was to travel from Homebush to the City, checking out my house on the way] (Americans might be a bit blasé about all of this, but it's only recently Australia got mapped, so I am a little bit awed by it still). Can I, for the record, assure people viewing the Sydney Olympic Site, that the water is not the same colour as black ink.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 09:21:44 -0800

Isn't this exactly the same as using Google Earth, only you're stuck in one place? Is the origin of the view modifiable or fixed? The New York one is initially over lower Manhattan. Is it possible to move to another location, say over Central Park? Click here.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 09:44:03 -0800

How indeed is this different from simply using Google Earth?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 11:10:03 -0800

This is nice, but "Belgium"? It's just Brussels, or greater Brussels. Might as well label the Moscow one "Panorama photo of Russia". (Not nthdegx's fault, rather the blogger's, but still, a nit worth picking).

By: nathan_teske

nathan_teske — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 11:45:53 -0800

Does anyone know of a tool/method that makes it easier to export and stitch images from Google Maps into giant aerial photos? Panoramas are neato but I want something to put on the wall in my cube.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 12:08:11 -0800

I don't know what the fuck are they thinking with the fake clouds and insanely skewed versions of what were once decent stiched together screengrabs. It doesn't look panoramic at all, it looks like crap. The Quicktime VR of NY looks decent, but what's the point? Google Earth itself does a far better job of that, including that gasp, you can move the goddamn camera around. All this is missing is anagrams and subway maps.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:30:55 -0800

odinsdream: "How indeed is this different from simply using Google Earth?" Clouds.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:31:48 -0800

...and the interesting novelty of a relatively sunny sky over London.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 02:57:07 -0800

You can download ultra high-resolution images from the USGS National Map Viewer with all manner of fancy overlays. I once compiled a 2 terabyte image of downtown Lincoln, Nebraska down to the meter: it took about an hour to put it all together in Photoshop. Luckily you can download 80 megabyte image chunks of overlays (on the left, under Downloads—not available on all maps).