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The great new model of Saint Basil’s Cathedral

We’ve shown you work from 3D modeler ‘PeterG’ quite a few times here on Google Earth Blog. He built one of the first great 3D interiors that we saw, some nice 3D tours of Mount Urgull, and quite a few other models.

His latest work is the remodeling of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow, Russia. It’s a stunning model that you need to see to believe.

To go check it out for yourself, you can fly there by using this KML file. Be sure to have the [3D Buildings] layer turned on to view the building.

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The great Football resources in Google Earth

With NFL and NCAA football both in high gear, we thought we’d take a look at various football-related resources in Google Earth.

A few years back, Google showed off all of the 245 NCAA football stadiums, many of which are in 3D. You can explore them yourself using this KML file.

Another way to see them is by viewing some of the stadium collections on EarthSwoop, which allow you to fly from stadium to stadium via the Google Earth Plug-in: ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 10, SEC and the entire NFL.

Speaking of the NFL, it’s worth checking out Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. It hosted the Super Bowl earlier this year, and it’s an amazing model. If you’re looking to play some football, you can check out the Google Earth-based football game that I created a few years ago. I’m sure it could be done better with the Google Earth Plug-in now, but it’s still pretty fun.

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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.

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:

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.

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“Destination Maps” for Your Holiday / New Year’s Parties

Over the next few weeks, there will be many holiday and New Year’s parties across the globe as we spend time with our families and welcome in 2011. I wanted to briefly re-visit a previously released Map App that is very timely for this time of the year – “Destination Maps”. When planning your party, this Map App lets you create custom mini-maps that you can save, print, or share via URL.

These maps can either help people who don’t know your location very well or just be a fun addition to a party invitation. And if you’re not having a party anytime soon, check it out anyways! You can choose from 4 different map styles, including the Treasure Map style as seen in the below example. Please note that the app takes between 2 and 4 minutes to generate the map.

On behalf of everyone at Bing Maps, have a happy holiday and a great final few weeks in 2010. Enjoy!

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Three new 3D cities released on Japan

It’s been a while since Google has officially released a 3D city (though new buildings are added weekly), so it was nice to see them add three more — Yokohama, Sendai and Saitama, Japan.

The cities each feature thousands of buildings, and look excellent!

As they often do, Google has produced a nice little video to show off the highlights in the new cities, so check it out here:

To see them for yourself, here are some KML files that will fly you directly to each city: Yokohama Google Earth File. You must have GE installed. Sendai.kmlSaitama.kml