It is also interesting to note that along with this announcement, Google implemented the possibility to 1) download all of your 3D Warehouse models at once and b) delete your 3D Warehouse account, if you would like to do that.įurthermore, along with SketchUp’s sale to Trimble, changes in 3D Warehouse licensing have been announced. Edit (6/27): Google just announced that “by the end of the year, we aim to have new 3D coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people.”.SketchUp 3D building models will still be needed for areas where the new technology is not available to autogenerate models.This is likely because the underlying data for Building Maker will be used to autogenerate the new models. Building Maker will remain available but more for SketchUp users than Google Earth modelers.In cities/areas where the new 3D content will be available, existing geo-models will not be shown in Google Earth.Earliest arrival date has been mentioned as “later this summer”. These new models will be first rolled out to Google Earth mobile and later to the desktop versions.The changes for the geo-modeling community have been outlined in a forum post and can be summarized as follows:

They will remain available in the 3D Warehouse (and any future version of it that Trimble may create) and for SketchUp users, but Google’s move obviously removes a major incentive for users to generate 3D building models – at least where the new coverage will be available. What this means is that for the cities where the new data will be available, geo-referenced models that had been created by users and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse, will not be shown in Google Earth anymore. As described in various press releases and posts, Google will – among other changes – implement automated building (and vegetation!) generation from flyover data for major cities. On the heels of the announcement that SketchUp has been sold to Trimble comes another announcement from Google, this time related to Google Earth.

Google 3d warehouse sketchup 8