Submitting 3D Buildings.

[Briggs]

One of the most beautiful things that I've seen are the creation of 3D buildings. Seeing buildings and entire cities in three dimensions is breathtaking, such as seeing the 3D satellite view of New York.

I took to see the three Australian cities, namely Parramatta, Sydney and Melbourne in Google Maps and the differences between each are quite contrasting.

From T to B: Parramatta, Sydney and Melbourne. The amount of detail packed between all the different cities have extreme differences, from a desolate 3D wasteland to probably one of the most built cities out.

I work in the city of Parramatta, and given its growth and all the construction that's happening, all the tall buildings and developments are starting to grow on me. But that's not the point. From what I hear, Google used stereophotogrammetry to generate these buildings, but why there are massive differences between each of them (Sydney and Melbourne are massive contenders, Brisbane also falls behind and Parramatta has almost nothing).

Over the weekend I took this very quick basic tablets class, and we were looking at the construction of 3D models. I was instantly drawn to the whole industry, and I myself would personally like to build and refine such an art. Now I know I don't really belong to such an organisation, but I would like to contribute 3D models of buildings to Google Maps. How would I be able to apply for such a program, develop my skill and/or be part of such?

[Flash]

Hello,

I'm sorry to tell you, but you are several years too late.

Google did at one time accept 3D models for buildings, but that program ended some time ago.  This is largely as the human element is no longer needed.  The majority of buildings are now computer generated using a combination of ortho and oblique photos.

This allows for the production of models far in excess of what humans would manage, for example look at this view of downtown Vancouver on a desktop computer.  Hold the shift key down on your keyboard and then use the right mouse button and scroll wheel to move around.  You'll see that not only are the buildings are modelled, but so are trees, trains, cars, etc.

[Briggs]

It is unfortunate. Aside from New York, San Francisco and Vancouver which have extremely detailed 3D models and textures, I was hoping to have some sort of build upon the cities of Sydney and Parramatta. How Melbourne manages to be supremely filled with 3D models whereas Sydney has a few and Parramatta virtually just one is kind of disappointing.

I probably can't ask to expedite the process to ask Google to generate the 3D models for Sydney and Parramatta, but the reasons why are probably because Sydney is immensely dense and all the buildings are crowded like sardines, and Parramatta doesn't have enough traction as a metropolis to include as such.

Thanks anyway.

[Briggs]

Okay. I don't mind that I can't submit 3D models.

But if you can look at the extremely distinct difference between Sydney and Melbourne's detail, is there any timeline as to when they'll continue to construct Sydney's 3D buildings database and generate it? Melbourne actually had some newly constructed buildings added to the grid recently, which is great for Melbourne, but not for Sydney. But look at Parramatta, for it to be considered Australia's next great city and to have zero 3D buildings is pretty sad. Does anyone know how we can either request 3D models to be created, or how we might be able to provide data?

[Csaba]

What @Flash says about textured buildings is true, @Briggs. However I am not sure about the non-textured ones. If you look at my city, it now has that 3D textured "variant" (and it's beautiful as is) but if you switch to the non-textured map, it goes back to 2D and only a few buildings are there (with varying details). Now I know from experience that these are the buildings that have been modelled in SketchUp manually and submitted to Google's 3D layer before 2012 (when this was closed). 

On the other hand, there is this  Map Content Partners program where (at least according to their help center), they still accept 3D buildings. The program must still exist as my city partnered with Google to provide transit data for local buses some time ago. 

On the (even more) other hand, 3D buildings are not listed in the contact form to tell about your data. You can still try to contact them.