Google Earth as glTF

Dev tools

3d asset conversion

SHOW HN2023

Google Earth as glTF

Get any piece of Google Earth as a single normalized glTF 3D model

github.com

#google earth 3d tiles#gltf#3d tiles#blender#photogrammetry

177points
30comments
#331of 3,109 in 2023
Top 11%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

4 positive, 4 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 3 critical, out of 11 comments about the project. Thread score +0.09.

Execution: 0 for, 2 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Renders well in a 3D monitor viewer

    From 1 comment
    • The viewer app for the Sony 3D monitor imports glTF files without any processing, and I can confirm that it displays effectively in actual 3D.
      zone411 on HN

Objections

  • Setup fails with 403 or fetch errors unless the 3D Tiles API is enabled

    From 3 comments
    • I created an API key, because I've been interested in creating a 3D map of Acadia National Park (Mt Desert Island) for a while. On the website, I put in the coords…
      SamBam on HN
    • I'm getting ``` ==== No tiles found for screen space error 8. Getting tiles that are within 2x of 64 === Fetching glTF 0/2 Fetching glTF 1/2 Normalizing & stitching together 2…
      zone411 on HN
    • Can someone explain the API situation? I have a dev account and I created a project, and I put a credit card in the billing info, and it gave me a maps api key which doesn't seem…
      Eisenstein on HN
  • Downloads hang or produce an empty glTF in some browsers

    From 1 comment
    • This would be very cool, if it worked for me. I tried this in firefox first and it downloaded something according to the log, but nothing was displayed and the downloaded gltf…
      oarfish on HN
  • Google billing and API signup are confusing

    From 2 comments
    • Can someone explain the API situation? I have a dev account and I created a project, and I put a credit card in the billing info, and it gave me a maps api key which doesn't seem…
      Eisenstein on HN
    • ``` > Is there something simple I am missing? ``` Yes. Last year's Google Maps API. We all miss it.
      dotancohen on HN

Requests

  • Offline use or commercial licensing clarity given Google's terms

    From 2 comments
    • They license most of their data and surely those license terms would be far more expensive if they allowed for this kind of export and offline use. Or they just couldn't license…
      crazygringo on HN
    • Does this imply that I cannot make commercial product using this models?
      ivanjermakov on HN

Questions

  • Can this be used commercially given Google's license terms?

    From 1 comment
    • Does this imply that I cannot make commercial product using this models?
      ivanjermakov on HN

Alternatives named

  • OpenTopography

    From 1 comment
    • Super cool that it includes high(ish)-resolution buildings! Folks interested in using this data may also be interested in OpenTopography[0], which is a repository of…
      gia_ferrari on HN
  • USGS Lidar Explorer

    From 1 comment
    • In the U.S., a great place to start is the USGS Lidar Explorer: https://apps.nationalmap.gov/lidar-explorer/#/ This site provides access to lidar point clouds (and DEMs, etc)…
      ddhhyy on HN
  • BlenderGIS

    From 1 comment
    • Yeah, BlenderGIS. It's the shiznit. I use that thing for basically all my terrain now; there's no tergen as good as ol' Planet Earth.. If you're doing visualizations or…
      MilStdJunkie on HN
  • PotreeConverter

    From 1 comment
    • HA! I have been following your tutorial for the past couple of days. I run into a major nightmare with GDAL not being seen in python. Its installed in pip list - I have OSgeoNW,…
      samstave on HN
  • Terrain2STL

    From 1 comment

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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