Google have announced a new tool to allow you to make and place buildings on Google Earth

Google have released an innovative new addon to the Google Earth plugin which allows you to make buildings. The Google Building Maker lets you use a few simple interactive tools which let you place a simple object over Google's 2D map and shape the building. To make the process easy you are presented with various ariel view images of the same place from different angles.

You are provided with a few tools which allow you to extend the basic cube or add a pitched roof. Textures are taken care of automatically based on the ariel images. You can preview the object at anytime. When you are happy with your object you can also load it into Google SketchUp to make further refinements such as better textures and add more building detail.

Although this sounds fantastic, currently you cannot choose anywhere in the world to place a new object. It is done from a predefined list of cities around the world. Also the object you create has to be checked before being added to Google Earth which means there could be a hundred people creating the same object and then only one being picked after all that hard work.

Saying that it looks pretty good and is really easy to use and will make bringing to life Google Earth something to look forward to.

Interview with a startup who will take Google SketchUp designs and turn them into reality

This is an interesting interview with a startup company who are going to take designs made with Google SketchUp and then deliver easily assembled structures direct to their customers.

The interesting thing about this is that the customer can just make the basic model and shape of the structure without worrying about the details.

Google announce maintenance release for Google SketchUp 7

Google have announced the latest maintenance release of SketchUp 7

This is mostly bug fixes and updates but of interest is the ability to place models under water when using Google Earth and again with Google Earth placing models from SketchUp 7 is more accurate.

Google’s whack at 3D begins to stand out

Building Design Online take a look at the latest edition of Google's Sketchup 7 software and how the professional version had become n important part of the architects workflow.