Click on the image to open the collection in Google Earth
Not even a fortnight ago, forum member Jack B. Erhart – aka “Jax” or “Jaxcoffee” after his Coffee House and Roastery in Paso Robles CA – started a project; to model all existing Carnegie Libraries in the US. As a first step, he started with his home sate of California and already three members of the SCF community (him plus “leedeetee” and “MuseumMaker“) together with others from elsewhere, as can be seen from the project’s Google Group site are working on the models in the 3D Warehouse collection page. So far there are 13 models – that would roughly make one a day which is quite impressive – so the collection is growing.
Hopefully the project will flourish, more and more skilled and enthusiastic modellers join and these fine, historic buildings receive the attention they deserve and the Carnegie Foundation will eventually find a way to support the project. Congrats Jax and the others and hooray for the project!
Really amazing quality of modelling for Google Earth. Congrats to Nick (aka “SittingDuck”) and Chris (aka “KR=”) who have completed a good deal of the historic centre of the Antwerp. Chris’ spectacular model of the main Cathedral of Our Lady (in the picture above) is a focal point for this area.
Autodesk has just announced Connection Extension for 3ds Max Design 2010. The extension allows enhanced interoperability with CAD packages, streamlined compositing with OpenEXR and extensive connectivity with Google SketchUp.
Develop a concept in Google SketchUp software and finesse it in 3ds Max Design. The Connection Extension for 3ds Max Design 2010 features a powerful new SKP file translator that enables you to bring SketchUp scenes into 3ds Max Design with a high degree of data preservation. And 3ds Max Design can now read thousands of free SketchUp models from the 3D Warehouse section of the Google website. The SKP translator includes:
Support for the double-faced materials workflow available in SketchUp, so arbitrary surface orientations don’t cause models to appear to be missing faces when displayed in 3ds Max Design.
Preservation of original pivot and scaling values of objects and instances, so designers don’t have to redo work.
Consolidation of material references. Multiple uses of the same SketchUp material are collected and referenced back to a single material, saving designers time if a change is required.
With the latest development in Google’s 3D Warehouse, you can already embed a 3D view (AKA “swivel”) or even 3D map view (this latter one requires the GE Plugin on the end user’s end however) in your website with iFrames (see below – the above is only an image).
“Lets test some serious organic modeling skills. This challenge is all about sailboats, you can make as detailed model as you like; use limited texture & work more on modeling 3d. your Sailboat can be luxury sail yacht, catamarans, classic sailboat, modern sailboat, racing sailboat or pirate sail vessel…”
Earlier this week, Google released tens of thousands of new 3D buildings in Japan. Major Japanese cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto have joined the growing list of cities and towns prominently displayed in Google Earth’s 3D buildings layer.
“The new, automated, 3D pipeline will allow us to review and publish your models faster, and with far greater predictability. Specifically, the new system will enable us publish data on a *weekly* basis and, in the near future, even faster. So, with the exception of the one week per month where we need to conduct maintenance, we plan to publish models each and every week going forward.” says Bruce Polderman, on behalf of the 3D Pipeline team.
The official Google SketchUp blog SketchUpdate has announced an experimental new feature in the 3D Warehouse which let’s you find similarly-shaped models. See the SketchUpdate blog for the details.
The official Google SketchUp blog SketchUpdate has announced an experimental new feature in the 3D Warehouse which let’s you find similarly-shaped models. See the SketchUpdate blog for the 
