Google Earth now seems to render in '3D'

[Team Microdot]

I am told it's been doing this for months - but I opened Google Earth this morning and it looked different - so I guess it has updated - I'm now on version 7.0.3.8542

I flew to some coordinates - so was looking at satellite imagery directly from above - so it was completely flat - which I'm used to...

Then I dropped Pegman on a road to dive down into street view...

Then clicked the button to exit street view - which left me with an oblique view across the landscape.

In that view, when I pan across the landscape it actually looks 3D!

Hills are hills, valleys are valleys etc and there's true depth there as well - it's rather cool

Looks like they've added a polygon based bump-map under the flat satellite imagery, and the imagery bends to conform to the map in real-time as you move around

(You can sometimes see some of the polygons - triangles - above the satellite imagery - which is what confirmed my suspicions)

I like it

[teamhillside]

My favourite new google maps (not earth, for some reason) feature is the 45deg views. Took me by surprise when I spotted Frodsham showing with the new images, which are much clearer. I like that you can view the images from N, S, E and W too.

e.g. http://goo.gl/maps/cSTol To pan around each of the views, click the "N" on the icon in the top left and drag it around.

Odd that the same images don't appear to be available in google earth for some reason (certainly not of my home town anyway).

Matt

[teamhillside]

Note, I am aware that the 45deg imagery is not covering everywhere at the moment - just "lucky" that it covers Frodsham!

[bargee72]

we used the 45 degree imagery 3 years ago when looking a houses to buy, to see the area around the proprties in Todmorden where we were looking at the time, and found it very useful, not bothered with it since though,

[teamhillside]

Its not available for Tod is it? I can't see it. I thought google only introduced this at all in 2012?

[bargee72]

must have been something else linked into the rightmove website that gave 45 degree views of properties,