14 DAY TRIAL // Google Building Maker has been a very useful tool since its introduction, enabling users to create 3D models for Earth and Maps, using the simple web interface and imagery from Google.
Until now, users had a choice to use the aerial imagery and recently, to add their own photos to use for textures. Now Google is introducing a third option, imagery from Street View.
"If you’ve ever modeled a building in Google Building Maker, you may have found yourself wanting to use crisper, more detailed photos in addition to the aerial oblique imagery," Nicole Drobeck, Geo Community Advocate at Google, wrote.
"Or, you may have had problems with poor textures caused by other buildings blocking the view of your building. In response to these issues we recently added the ability to add your own photos to Building Maker, but now you can also use imagery directly from Street View on Google Maps!," she announced.
Anyone who has ever used Building Maker should have no problem using the new imagery source. First get started with your building just like you normally would.
After you've created a model and aligned it to the exiting aerial imagery available, you can replace the texture with images from Street View, if they are available, obviously.
After choosing the best images that suit the model you can align Street View images just like any other imagery. The model will be updated with the higher-quality images from Street View.
The end result is that models should be getting higher quality textures from now on, in the cities where Street View is available.
Building Maker has also been made available in six more cities recently, Edinburgh - United Kingdom, Florence - Italy, Vienna - Austria, Pittsburgh, PA - United States, Santa Cruz, CA - United States and Riverside, CA - United States. Vienna is the only one where Street View imagery is not available.