• 3DVia redux: Not content to just have Microsoft adopt its 3DVia technology to build a 3D Warehouse competitor, Dassault Systemes is also teaming up with Publicis Publishing group to create the password-esquely named 3DSwym, which will focus on something called “consumer journey management”, which I think means getting people to to interact with consumer goods packaging in 3D as it is being developed in order to get feedback from them and thus create something that they really want. Caveat Edsel? Still, another case of using 3DVia to keep metadata with the 3D model throughout the production pipeline, which is the future of such systems.
• 3D Warehouse2ArchiCAD: First Photoshop CS3 Extended got a plugin for retrieving content from 3D Warehouse, now Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD 11 gets the same functionality. Cadalyst has the news, and instrucitons.
• GE Security: Avi Bar-Ze’ev offers to explain to NY State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris why his security concerns regarding Google Earth are unfounded. Also, as of now he is putting his technology posts up on Reality Prime, so update your readers.
• Another Street View competitor: Map Jack. One sentence review: Higher resolution pictures but with a less fluid GUI that Street View, and currently for San Francisco only, so it will be interesting to see how this scales. (Via 3PointD)
• Picasa Mashup: On the Maps API Blog, Pamela Fox explains how to mash up Picasa with Google Maps by creating a route for a georeferenced Picasa album. I’ve spent the last few days trying to add a traveling salesman solution to the code, but no luck yet. You’ll be sure to hear about it if I do:-)
• Ozzie Jaws? Somebody’s been scouring Sydney’s Australia Day high resolution images available in Google Earth, and suspected two of the surfers are really a shark and a stingray. The news made it to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. The pictures in the article are not all that clear, so here are the placemarks; check for yourself. I think the shark’s a good candidate, but the stingray — no way. (Best viewed in Google Earth, not Maps — Maps doesn’t let you get close enough.)

AGI makes Satellite Tool Kit, an astrodynamics application for designing, visualizing and analyzing air and space flight. It does a lot of heavy lifting for government agencies, the military, and civilian aircraft manufacturers.

One use is the planning of flying unmanned flying drone (UAV) missions and the analysis of gathered data. Not everyone has an STK system installed, however, so now there is a utility that exports that data (and stuff like it) to KML. It’s shown in action in this YouTube video:

Watch it even if just for the eye-candy of seeing how STK’s virtual globe works. Can’t wait for this kind of augmented reality prowess to show up in Google Earth:-) Okay, maybe we’ll have to wait a couple of years.

Google Maps just got a jaw-droppingly impressive upgrade to its directions functionality. Just watch the YouTube video already:

You have to play with it to believe it. And it works in Europe too, across countries:

And it handles ferries seamlessly:

I have no idea how the algorithm for finding routes does its work so fast, or how address labels get to be displayed on the fly as you drag a destination around, but this bit of AJAX programming is simultaneously technically stunning, useful, and easy to use.

From the Department of Paranoid Officialdom:

The NYT reports: Google Earth Makes Some Officials Nervous. Apparently, Microsoft and Google vans have been scouring NYC for their street view products, and this has been making low-level officials nervous.

This morning, the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, held a news conference in Midtown Manhattan to urge Internet-based mapping services to consult with law enforcement authorities — and well, to just be responsible — in deciding what to put on the Web. Citing Google Earth among other services, he said he was worried that too much information might compromise counterterrorism efforts.

Right. Because terrorists are too stupid to drive cars and take pictures themselves. (Some of the comments attached to the article are priceless.)

As you perhaps know, the residence of US Vice President Dick Cheney — the US Naval Observatory — is pixellated in Google Earth/Maps (and Microsoft Virtual Earth), and has been since the application launched. The White House and the Capitol are crystal clear, so why not Cheney’s residence? Is it a conspiracy?

Probably not. This issue was first raised by Maureen Dowd back in 2005 and deemed then to most likely be imagery processed along outdated guidelines. In a similar case, Google upgraded imagery of the White House when the existing view was shown to be doctored. In other words, Google has likely just never gotten round to finding a better un-pixellated view of Cheney’s home — so it would be unfair to blame Cheney for the state of his home in Google Earth, at least without some kind of evidence he’s behind the pixellation.

That doesn’t stop Jon Stewart at the daily Show from doing this, however:

At the very least, it’s more evidence of Google Earth’s grip on mainstream consciousness.

(Via Fantom Planet)

• Want to know what Google’s plans are for monetizing its mapping products? You could do worse than read the following patent application, filed by Google on Dec 12, 2006 and published a few days ago: Determining Advertisements using user interest information and map-based location information (Via SEO by the SEA, which also takes a closer look at the details of the patent.)
• Webware has a sneak preview of Earthmine, a georeferenced urban imagery system that aims to outdo Google’s Street View with clearer, higher-vantage imagery and (it is claimed) 3D data gathering abilities. ETA is later this summer. (Thanks Andy!)
• Evan Ratliff’s big Wired article on Google Maps and Earth is out. Evan auto-reviews it on his own blog:
  

  As the online version’s headline implies (or possibly, overstates to the point of self-parody), it’s about how Google Maps and Google Earth are altering the way people relate to geography. Perhaps more interestingly, it’s about how thousands of people have taken the tools made by Google and other companies to become their own mapmakers.

  It’s an informed and worthwhile read.

• Feed Validator’s KML support has now been officially announced on the Google Maps API Blog.
• The joint-US/Mexico/Canada Commission for Environmental Cooperation today launches a KML layer mapping US, Canadian and Mexican industrial pollutant data. If you live there, it is worth checking out pollution sources near you. (Via the Daily Green)

Google is opening its first office in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Kenya. Jonathan Thompson of Humanlink flags a really interesting tidbit in an interview by AllAfrica with Google’s new site lead, Joseph Mucheru:

Q: So what’s Google want to do?

Initially there will be three big things. Firstly, we want to optimise the use of Google applications in the region. We already have a lot of customers in the region but further development of the market is hindered by the absence of an international cable offering cheap bandwidth. Google understands that this is an impediment and is willing to go to the extent of buying international bandwidth [so] that locals don’t have to pay the current considerable premium they are.

The second thing they want to develop is their Maps product to make sure it has local information that is searchable and useful.

The third thing is using Google advertising in ways that can help monetize local content. Lots of people have done local content but most times it’s flopped. We hope to show that there’s a way of doing advertising that can support content. If we can do this, it will generate jobs and work.

The info about Google Maps is welcome but not unexpected. The bit about subsidizing access to the web (and thus Google) in Africa is a fascinating idea, and not one I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere. Writes Jonathan:

These developments has serious implications for aid workers who are based in the region. Kenya has long been the hub for South Sudan, Somalia and to some extent Uganda and Ethiopia. Let’s hope they cover South Sudan first. Not sure how they’ll handle the bandwidth issue. With the Google Earth Pro Grants program and increased capacity we’re looking at some substantive changes for the aid community.