Who's the newest Super Modeler? Vote!

(Cross-posted from the Official SketchUp Blog)

Today we’re announcing a new approach to bestowing “Super Modeler” status on our geo-modeling rock stars. More on that below—but first a little history.

A new form of 3D modeling began when @Last Software, the maker of SketchUp, was acquired by Google in 2006. Modeling 3D buildings for the purpose of viewing them in Google Earth went from being a quirky activity to a new art form. We refer to it as "geo-modeling.”

Being 3D enthusiasts ourselves, we were always on the lookout for good building models in the 3D Warehouse. When we discovered particularly impressive ones, we would add them to the featured modeler collection.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood by Arrigo Silva

Internally, we used the phrase “super modelers” to describe the people creating these amazing models, but it wasn’t until we started planning the first geo-modeling conference in August of last year that we began to publicly refer to modelers in this way. Following the event, a newsgroup was established, a collection created, and the user community representing some of the most skilled geo-modelers was officially born.

As the geo-modeling community expanded, so did the number of people creating remarkable models. We continued to add new modelers as we discovered them, and earlier this year we introduced badges in the 3D Warehouse—with one designated specifically for Super Modelers.

The coveted Super Modeler badge

With badges comes competition—more and more modelers began to ask how they could earn this honor. As time passed it became evident that we needed a clear set of criteria by which a modeler would be considered. The time had also come to establish greater transparency for how these decisions were being made, and who was making them.

So today we’re announcing a new process to become a Super Modeler—you decide!

It works like this: Each month the Super Modeler community will nominate ten geo-modelers who they believe are, well, super. Votes will be accepted for a three-week period. At the end of that period, the modeler who has received the most votes will become the newest Super Modeler.

In addition to being awarded a Super Modeler badge, the winner’s collection will be prominently featured on the Google 3D Warehouse until the next Super Modeler is selected. They'll also receive a one-of-a-kind “I’m a Google Supermodel(er)” t-shirt from the Google team.

It all starts now: Take a look at November's nominees, then cast your vote for the next Google Super Modeler!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Changing World, Changing Maps

Today, we are excited to let you know that we have updated the base map data in all Google Maps products and services for ten countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland. This follows earlier improvements to our maps in the US and Canada, and will be rolling out over the course of the next day.

Somewhere near you, a new road is being constructed, an existing one is changing names, a new restaurant is opening, or a parking lot is making way for a park. With this update, you can help keep your neighborhood accurate across Google’s geo product suite. Notice that something has changed on your block recently, or that the directions provided could have been better? Report a problem, and we will make the change in Google Maps within a couple of months.

We have worked hard to improve the usefulness of the maps for our users, developers, and business partners. Improvements range from including more address data and building footprints so you find your destinations easily, to adding higher resolution topographic features and detailed university campuses to help you orient yourself faster in a new area. We have also augmented our maps with bike paths and walking trails, and will roll out biking directions soon. We hope our maps help you explore your world better.

Posted by Anup Mantri, Software Engineer

Regarding the boundary between Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Update (11/8/10): For those interested in reading more about the history of this dispute, consider checking out Stefan Geens' thorough post over at Ogle Earth.

Yesterday we became aware of a dispute that referenced the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua as depicted on Google Maps. This morning, after a discussion with the data supplier for this particular border (the U.S. Department of State), we determined that there was indeed an error in the compilation of the source data, by up to 2.7 kilometers. The U.S. Department of State has provided a corrected version and we are now working to update our maps.

Current, incorrect depiction of the San Juan River boundary

Unlike the image above of our current depiction, the corrected version will follow the east bank of the San Juan River going northward, nearly to the Caribbean. It will then turn eastward and follow the southern shoreline of a large lagoon, Laguna los Portillos. This depiction follows the demarcation laid out in the First Award of Arbitration of 1897, which affirmed the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858.

It is our goal to provide the most accurate, up-to-date maps possible. Maps are created using a variety of data sources, and there are inevitably going to be errors in that data. We work hard to correct any errors as soon as we discover them.

Given the complexity of the issue, I thought that I’d take this opportunity to provide some additional historical context.

The dispute in this area goes back to at least the mid-19th century, and both the International Court of Justice and the United Nations have weighed in. The dispute mainly centers around control of the mouth of the San Juan River, and was recently reignited because of dredging activity in this location.

In 1888, U.S. President Grover Cleveland was called upon by Nicaragua and Costa Rica to arbitrate the dispute. That year, the New York Times published President Cleveland’s decision. The 1888 Arbitration upheld the 1858 treaty and its terms.

The New York Times, 25 March, 1888

Then, in 1897, Cleveland sent Edward P. Alexander to do a more detailed Arbitration Award for this region. Alexander went into great detail on the San Juan river boundary and drew the map depicted below:

Map attached to the Sept. 30, 1897 Arbitration Award

Once our updates go live in Google Earth and Maps we will be depicting the border according to the most recent and definitive records available. But as we know, cartography is a complex undertaking, and borders are always changing. We remain committed to updating our maps as needed.

Posted by Charlie Hale, Geo Policy Analyst

Imagery Update - Week of November 1st

The Google Earth and Maps Imagery team has just released another extensive batch of aeriel and satellite images for your enjoyment! In honor of the upcoming U.S. holiday Veterans Day (November 11th), we’ll take a look at a few military-themed museums.

Let’s start with a wide-view of the naval ships on display at the Baltimore Maritime Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Historic ships that you can zoom in on and see close up in Google Earth or Maps include the last sail-only warship USS Constellation (lower left); the submarine USS Torsk (upper left) which sunk the last enemy ship in World War II; and the cutter USCGC Taney (upper right), the last ship still floating that fought during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Baltimore Maritime Museum in Baltimore, MD

Now that we’ve got our sea legs, let move sub-orbital and beyond at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Here we can see a restored Saturn V-1 “moon shot” test vehicle and the A-12 Oxcart “Blackbird” spy plane.

U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL

These are just a few examples of the many museums around the globe that are included in our latest imagery batch.

High Resolution Aerial Updates:
USA: Baltimore, Cedar Rapids, Huntsville, Long Island, Redding, Springfield (IL), St. Joseph (MO)
Austria: Schladming
Finland: Pori
Ireland: Athlone, Drogheda, Dundalk, Enniscorthy, Galway, Limerick, Monaghan, Tralee, Waterford,
Spain: Vasco

Countries receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:
Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, People's Republic of the Congo, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, The Bahamas, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are currently only available in Google Earth, but they'll also be in Google Maps soon. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist

A special preview of beautiful Germany in Street View

The clocks have just gone back in Europe, it's getting colder and suddenly 5pm feels like 8pm - which means that winter is just around the corner. If you live in Germany like I do, this isn’t such bad news at all - because it means we're one step closer to warming ourselves up with traditional German fare such as Glühwein and enjoying delicious Lebkuchen. These delicacies are particularly well known in Bavaria in the South of Germany so it may be harder for you to get your hands on them if you’re not living here! But at least starting today, you can get a much better sense for Bavaria and its traditions by exploring the streets of the picturesque Bavarian village of Oberstaufen using Street View.

So why Oberstaufen you may ask? For several months, the people of Oberstaufen, along with the mayor and the local tourist board have publicly invited us to put their town on the map so they can show it off to the world. We’ve been so impressed with their creativity (not to mention their cake baking skills), that we’ve worked extra hard in the last few weeks to get some pictures ready and into Street View, which you can explore today.

But sorry, you’ll have to bake your own Lebkuchen (gingerbread) this time, as I’ve been busy with the people of Oberstaufen at a traditional folk festival in celebration of Street View. Where of course we had an XXL version of this cake that the local tourism director Bianca Keybach, Mayor Walter Grath and I cut together during the festival! Look at the festivities as they unfolded today here:

Picasa album of Oberstaufen event

And that’s not all, because today we’re also bringing you a special preview of some other fascinating German places, before we make available full Street View imagery of the largest 20 cities in Germany in the near future. Our preview includes snapshots of landmarks in 5 of the 20 cities.

You can visit Königsplatz in Munich, Castle Solitude in Stuttgart , the Köhlbrandbrücke in Hamburg or the stunning Semper Opera building in Dresden, along with the Zwinger Palace and the Imperial Church.

Semper Opera building

Other places include the Berlin Victory Column and the Federal Chancellery with its 36 meter high main facade, on the eastern bank of the River Spree.

Federal Chancellery

For German football fans (that’s soccer to many of you) we have something really special indeed: ten Bundesliga football stadiums in 360-degree panoramic perspective, including the Allianz Arena in Munich, Imtech Hamburg Arena and the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen.

I hope you enjoy - I’m off to finish my piece of the Oberstaufen cake now and then I’ll go pay a virtual visit to some of my own favorite football stadiums.

Posted by Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director, Germany

Announcing the Panoramio Photo Contest

The Panoramio community enables you to share your photos and explore them on Google Earth, Google Maps and other places. If you’ve never geo-tagged a photo, watch this video to learn how easy it is to add photos to the Panoramio layer in Google Earth.

Now you can add some excitement to your photo project and enter your photos to the monthly Panoramio Geotagged Photo Contest! Starting this month, we’ll be giving away the new Casio Hybrid-GPS camera EX-H20G to the winner of each category (Scenery, Heritage, Travel and Unusual Location). The Panoramio community reviews all of the submissions and votes for what they consider to be the best each month.


Casio’s new Hybrid-GPS camera combines a GPS engine with autonomic positioning made possible by a motion sensor. This makes geotagging easy—both outdoors and indoors.


If you haven’t joined the Panoramio community yet, try it out and don’t forget to participate in our monthly contest. To enter your photo, click on “Submit to the contest” and choose a category. Good luck and we can’t wait to see your photos!

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Google Places now more widely available in Asia

People often use the Internet to look for businesses in their nearby vicinity. For example, a mother in Karachi might be trying to find a dentist for her teenager, or a young professional in Colombo may find himself in need of a computer repair shop. People also go online to research places they might visit when traveling, such as a dive shop in Palau, a backpacker hostel in Kathmandu, or a cooking class in Phnom Penh.

Because of this increasing trend in which people search online to find local establishments, business owners all over the world are realizing how simple and easy it is to reach their target customers through free business listings on Google.com and Google Maps. We’ve been gradually expanding access to our online database of local information, called Google Places, and it has recently become available to businesses and locations in 30 additional countries in Asia.

Example of business listings displayed on google.com

If you haven't already claimed your free listing in Google Places, doing so can help ensure that customers see accurate information about your business, and increase your likelihood of being found from desktop and mobile devices - even if you don’t have a website. With your free Google Places account, you can:

• Be found: Verify your information to make sure people can find you on Google
• Stand out: Engage customers with photos, coupons, custom posts on your Place page and more
• Get insights: Use info about your listing to make smarter business decisions

Any business located in a region where Google Places is available (now more than 100 countries) can sign in to Google Places at any time to claim or update their listing. And for those of you specifically located in South Asia (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives), Southeast Asia (Macau, Cambodia, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos), Western Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), North Asia (Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Mongolia), and the Pacific (Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Guam, Papua New Guinea, Northern Mariana Islands, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa and Palau), we warmly welcome you and invite you to check it out!

Posted by Andrew McGlinchey, Product Manager