3D website is the new frontier of digital mapping and rich internet experience

First the Google Earth, then comes plug-ins to have the Google Earth on your website followed by extensive kml and tour embeding options on your BROWSER. Yes, the 3D digital mapping is kicking off, very quickly starting from desktop application to your browser...the armchair cartographers and enthusiasts can be the virtual Columbus reaching every corners of the globe just by downloading some plug-ins!

Of course, it is not cheap to have spatial information in 3D from all over the world, so there is a very popular solution: crowd sourcing. Google has been doing it through the introduction of Sketch up, and now building maker (very powerful tool), where Microsoft has tried some options like Truespace and turned back to professional help from their own team in pursuit of the 3D cities. The competitions grow and so do the 3D virtual cities.

In an attempt to provide true (actual height plus some errors) 3D experience, a project called skape (not Skype) is another example of a struggle to attract more "users" in the virtual 3D world. Skape is getting Lidar data (with height information) in order to have true height of urban areas that will particularly benefit municipalities, environmental planners (at least they claim it) and of course, people like you and me!

Those are just the examples from the spatial world. Yes they were there before...but just arrived on your browser recently. More importantly, you will have the real 3D web browsing experience soon, Google, the giant, has recently (not that recently though) released O3D web api that allows you to create rich and interactive 3D applications in the browser. There you go!

Google Earth Vs Bhuvan: Is Sanskrit Digital Earth a new rival to Google Earth?

Indian Space Agency released a beta version of Bhuvan today. It is named as an answer to Google Earth in blogsphere and GIS international news. Bhuvan in sanskrit (the oldest languge, from which Hindi, Nepali and some other regional languages evolved) means "Earth". The virtual earth is no more a Google Earth, it is just the Earth now when it comes to the digital world. Digital earth or Bing with its unique 3D capability, specially with Microsoft's own staff instead of crowd sourcing, is gaining more popularity. However, Google Earth has already become the everyday phenomena in "general Google it" public. In the crowd of these two major industry players, Bhuvan is a leap from the Indian Governmental presence in the digital world which also shows that India is now ready to "show off" its technical capability outside of "Outsouring Area".
Bhuvan contains very high resolution imagery in most part of India, and has high to medium resolution imagery of the world taken from various satellites including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2. Hosted from www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in, it can be a great success as this will have multilayer images and will be updated every year unlike Google Earth which updates about every four year, depending on the location.

Catch, I tried accessing the website, due to "high numbers of users on the site" , I really could not go too further. Maybe it was the bad time on the day. Anyway, I did discover that you need to fill out a mandatory form and have a user name for Bhuvan. I don't see it as a rival to Google or Digital Earth at any sense, however, the attempt to provide multi-resolution imagery for the people in those region is praiseworthy, as they are not as common as in North America and Europe. Keep in mind, it is still in beta version!!!I will update on the quality of it whenever I access it successfully!

Yes, like Google Earth and Digital Earth, Bhuvan also has the 3D capability!!!

3 Steps to Synchronize Google Earth with ArcMap

In one of my earlier posts, I had written about how to synchronize two or multiple maps. I came to know that most of you are interested in synchronizing Google Earth with ArcMap. Now, I thought I should let you know about this script/tool that can be used in order to synchronize Google Earth with ArcMap. This script is developed by Luiz Motta, and I found this as a public domain from ESRI website. When I say script, you might think...not my thing! That's not true..you don't need to do anything. The author of the script has created a very good documentation and all you need to know is copy and paste.
Basic requirements:
1. ArcMap 8.2 or higher (Although I have tested only in 9.1, .2 and .3)
2. Google Earth installed in your machine (any version..i believe..i tested in 4 and 5, and it works)
3. You should be detail-oriented and able follow the instructions thoroughly (No programming required).

How to synchronize? Three Steps:
1. Download the zip file from here.
2. Open ArcMap and follow the instructions from the pdf file.
3. Select either Google Earth or ArcMap tab in order to zoom to the areas of your interest from both platform (Google and ArcMap) at the same time.
See the image below to get an idea how it should look:


There you go!!! It is that easy. It might take about 15 minutes for you to copy, paste and follow the instructions. Great script, however you can not digitize (to my knowledge) in both platforms by digitizing or editing one of them. Share your thoughts about what you think!