3D models of German landmarks in Google Earth

Google Sketchup lets you create 3D models of buildings and place them in Google Earth.

There are a few models of German landmarks already available in the 3D Warehouse.

Berlin - Bundestag
Berlin - Brandenburg Gate

Munich - Olympiastadion
Munich - GoYellow Tower
Munich - Olympiatower

Frankfurt - Alte Oper (pictured)
Frankfurt - Paulskirche
Frankfurt - Deutsche Bank HQ

Its really rather good. There are loads of nice new things you do in google earth.
I was chatting to somebody about taking a load of photos of different parts of munich, and mapping them into tgoogle earth- think of a number of markers around the fountain at Marienplatz, with photos taken facing different directions. Well, somebody else has thought of something waaay better Digital Urban have a video on this page showcasing their way to display panoramic photo in a spherical object overlaid on goole earth. Its extremely impressive.


The coolest looking feature of Google sketchup to me looks is Photo Match. You bascially get a photo of a building, and fiddle about drawing lines on it so that sketchup can work out the panels and perspective points and stuff, and create the object in 3d, complete with your original photo elements "projected" onto walls of your sketchup object.
This video shows just that, getting a photo mapped into sketchup. Pretty awesome.

Also check out Microsoft's Photosynth, it's vaguely related. Basically takes a bunch of photos of the same thing from different locations (or find a load via flickr etc) and then constructs a 3D view of it that you can walk about in and have all the detail of all the photos in one place. It was at quite an early stage last time I looked.

Lots of 3D data of Berlin was released for Google Earth last week.

The data apparently includes rendering for 44,000 buildings - about 10% of all buildings in Berlin.

Five of the buildings, eg. the Reichstag and Olympic Stadium, are available in high resolution including interior details.

Click to read more and to download the collection.

Potentially a nice little bit of money that could be made here for a budding entrepreneur with a bit of time - creating company HQs and offices and whatnot in 3D for google earth. Hotels, government buildings, must be a market for it eh.