[Yossi Kaplan MBA]

You heard it here first:

Google Building Maker uses "Crowd Sourcing" to build 3D models of buildings in various cities to be entered in Google Earth.


http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html

and article at

http://mashable.com/2009/10/13/google-building-maker/

 

[climacus]

Google Maps already have the major structures in the downtown core modeled in 3D wireframes. To access them, just keep zooming in until the wireframe models appear.

 

[wyliepoon]

^ I think Building Maker's purpose is to allow Google Earth to include buildings beyond the downtown core. However, instead of doing everything in-house like the downtown models, I think they've gotten lazy and are now getting others to do their work for them with Building Maker.

Right now the area of Toronto that Google wants people to model through Building Maker doesn't really have any significant tall towers... Rosedale, Riverdale, the Portlands, Christie Pits.

I just tried out Building Maker today. Unfortunately, it does not leave any room for creativity, so I'm sticking with Sketchup for all my Google Earth modeling needs.