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Amsterdam – another dimension in Google Earth

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Amsterdam for yourself, I’m happy to say that Google Earth now offers the next best thing: Amsterdam in 3D.
Recently, several thousand buildings have been added to the capital city of the Netherlands, Amsterdam. Using Google Maps with Earth view or Google Earth’s “3D Buildings” layer, you can now travel the city’s charming streets and canals to experience its rich architectural history. Download this KML tour from the Google Earth Gallery to take a virtual tour of the 3D landmarks for yourself.

Navigate in Google Earth to visit one of Amsterdam’s famous museums like the Rijksmuseum or the van Gogh Museum. And with the Google Art Project, take a peek inside the museum to see high-definition renditions of many famous paintings.

Van Gogh Museum (front) and Rijksmuseum (right)
Since you’re at the Museum Square already, take a look at the Concertgebouw (Concert Hall). Turn around and go along one of the three most famous canals in Amsterdam: the Herengracht, the Keizersgracht and the Prinsengracht. Don’t forget to stand still at number 263, where Anne Frank wrote her unforgettable diary during the Second World War.

Continue through the lovely small canals to the city’s major square: the Dam, where you’ll find the impressive 350-year old Royal Palace and the National Monument. Not far from the Dam, you can admire the Beurs van Berlage, the old Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Beurs van Berlage, the old Amsterdam Stock Exchange
You’ll find modern Amsterdam in 3D as well: next to the Central Station is the NEMO Science Center, which looks like a Flying Dutchman’s ship rising from the water. Then fly south to the futuristic Amsterdam Arena football stadium.

NEMO Science Center
When you’re finished touring Amsterdam in Google Earth, head south to The Hague, where citizens are actively modeling their city with free 3D tools from Google.

Dutch citizens modeling The Hague
If you’d like to get started modeling your town, you can get started quickly with Google Building Maker (where available).

3ds Max 2011 One Project from Start to Finish

3ds Max is a uniquely powerful modelling program, yet one that can catch out both new comers and even advanced users out with its intricacies and workflows. Many tutorial style books are fundamentally flawed by assuming the reader is already familiar with various aspects of the software. Indeed, we remember well a book that stated ‘now complete this easy step’ only to leave us both frustrated and annoyed as we failed to grasp the instructions.

What therefore is needed is a book that illustrates the process of creating a 3D visualization project step by step – and we are pleased to say there finally is a book worthy of its title ‘3ds Max 2011, One Project from Start to Finish’.

The movie below details the model produced over 9 chapters and the good news is we have three copies to give away, full details at the end of the post:

The book has been designed to be useful for readers at all skill levels. The material is presented in a way that will engage advanced users while still being explicatory enough for beginners – which is great to see.

Covering 2D-3D Modelling, Terrain Creation, Tree Creation, Water Elements, Animation, Lighting, Rending, Particles Systems and more the book provides a fully structured guide.

If your only going to buy one 3D modelling book this year then 3ds Max 2011 – One Project from Start to Finish is simply the best option.

The publishers 3DATS have kindly provided us with 3 copies to give away to readers – simply retweet this post and we will pick 3 winners at random from the Twitter feed. Competition ends 28th February, so you have a week to enter.

The retweet button is at the top of the post, good luck, books will be shipped Tuesday 29th, each valued at $99.95.

Google Dashboard Upgrade: Request a Review Link

Google is every so carefully dipping their toes in the water of providing real support. They seem to be moving at the speed of the slowest glacier but they are moving.

One much needed customer support feature, pushing the reconsideration link directly into the dashboard, was first seen early last summer. The following statement has been in the Google Help files in regards to suspensions and rejections for quite a while:

What can I do? Edit your listing so that it adheres to our guidelines, then request reconsideration of your listing within your account.

Note: Reconsideration is not currently available in all accounts.

The feature apparently is slooooowly making its way across the claimed listings and will eventually be available to all. I finally ran across an account that had a rejected listing and included the link.

While you are waiting for your very own “request a review” link to appear in your dashboard you just get to look at screen shots:

Initial Message (Click to see larger):