C3, the Swedish company that brought you the automated 3D rendition of Stockholm made from just aerial shots, not LIDAR (blogged back in May) has just released a 3D version of Oslo. Wow:
(High-resolution 30MB WMV version)
The technology has gotten a lot better since May; Oslo exhibits far fewer “molten clock” artifacts, and the sides of buildings are now on the whole uniformly straight. Some errors do still creep in when it comes to vertical textures, but these are not noticeable from a casual perusal.
The overall effect is very impressive — it looks like Microsoft Virtual Earth’s bird’s eye view, except that you can rotate, tilt and zoom the view at will and keep the correct 3D perspective.
Here are a few more screenshots:
Unlike the embedded viewer used in May for Stockholm, the one used for Oslo is ActiveX-based and does not currently work in Mac and Linux browsers, though plugins for those systems are promised for early 2009. (It does work via VMWare Fusion on the Mac.)
(Some cool hints from the Norwegian instruction manual: Press P to toggle a wireframe view. I toggles rendering info, W/A/S/D is for moving, N/M for zooming, while the arrow keys tilt and rotate.)
Are they anything to do with these guys:
http://labs.finn.no/blog/sesam-3d-map-3d-revolution-people
Or is everyone producing 3D models of Oslo at the moment?
Yes, the same people. I think they paid for it.
Hi Keir!
The product described is launched for FINN.no and Sesam.no. FINN is one of the biggest internet players in Norway and sesam is one of the FINN brands handling search and maps among other things. FINN/Sesam has engaged one of Norway’s leading 3D experts, the Norwegian company myVR Software AS. They have contributed in delivering a user friendly and dynamic virtual reality. So both FINN/Sesam, C3 and myVR are involved.
Read more in this blog post
At FINN labs the users have the possibility to discuss the technology with the people involved in the product.
Eyvind A. Larre
FINN.no AS
labs.finn.no / http://www.finn.no
So C3 is also taking the images by themselves or are the images from FINN`s database?