Google Earth: Amsterdam in 3D

Google has just pushed out thousands of new 3D buildings in Amsterdam, making for quite a remarkable-looking city. What I’ve found especially noteworthy is the level of architectural detail on the smaller buildings in the city. The texture quality on them isn’t great, but the rooflines, chimneys and other aspects of the buildings are quite good.

amsterdam-smaller-buildings.jpg

The other thing missing is the trees. I know that most cities around the world still don’t have 3D trees introduced in Google Earth 6, but it would be a major improvement on some of the tree-lined streets, such as the one seen here:

amsterdam.jpg

All of that being said, the city looks great! Google is continuing to expand their 3D coverage, making Google Earth more and more like what you’d find in real life.

You can fly there and check it out in Google Earth by using this KML file, or watch the video below for a fly-through of the city.

Google API Talks – Android, KML,Google Maps,Gadgets/Mapplets

At the beginning of the April Silicon Valley GTUG meeting, several Googlers and external developers gave lightning talks about their latest and greatest. Watch Dick Wall talk about Android updates, Van Riper talk about his KML, Tom Brown display transit data visualization in Google Earth, Brian Hamlin show off animated weather KML, the Seero guys demonstrate their live video mapping site, Mano Marks introduce libKML, and Pamela Fox talk about Google Gadgets and Mapplets.