After catching the November 11th episode of Loaded on CNET TV, I decided to fire up Google Earth (you can watch the video to see why). On a whim, I turned on the 3D Buildings option in Seattle… and I proceeded to experience complete and utter mesmerization.
Every single sky scarper in the city, notable landmarks, the stadiums, surrounding neighborhoods, hell even my law school (!!) had a 3D building, all lighting up to make the Google Earth view of Seattle a glorious site to behold. For those curious of the view, I took a screen shot which you can see here, but you really need to load up Google Earth and spend some time navigating around the 3D world. It’s really impressive (and fun!). I think the job they did with Seattle is far beyond what any normal person would need in the 3D building view (although I guess you could probably say that about the 3D building view itself), and I have to say I’m impressed that they did such a thorough job. Of course, it is Google…
And all this in conjunction with the recent roll out of Google Street View in Seattle. I know I blogged on this earlier, but I just have to say again, it’s so cool to (finally) have Google Street View up and running here. Also, it seems to me that the pictures are all high resolution (at least, those in the city and nearby neighborhoods) which would seem to make Seattle’s street view a higher quality implementation than in other cities.