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Google Earth VR
- toomanycooks666 10y agosplooge
- strictnein 10y agoHonestly, I'm visiting Mecca tonight. And then Tehran. And then North Korea.
- strictnein 10y agoWhy the downvote? How visiting forbidden places isn't on the top of mind for people using this is beyond me. Area 51, White House grounds, Russian military bases, Syria. I know the experience will vary, but think big.
- RileyJames 10y agoYou can go to Tehran & North Korea, just need to apply for a visa.
- strictnein 10y ago> "You can go to Tehran & North Korea" Leaving, on the other hand... https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings/iran-travel-warning.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings... https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings/north-korea-travel-warning.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings...
- saiya-jin 10y agojust don't have US/Israel passport or visa stamp from there, and Iran will be one of best experiences in your life. people are amazing, culture is just WOW, whole place feels ancient even to europeans (and it is...). it is properly exotic in some parts in a way that will soon be only a thing of the past for most 'exotic' places on the earth, that look more and more like a standard copy&paste westernized locations. most people speak OK english, very welcoming and friendly. don't trust some crap propaganda.
- derrickdirge 10y agoI thought Mecca was like, the opposite of a forbidden place.
- strictnein 10y agoMecca, Saudi Arabia is slightly different, of course.
- aianus 10y agoIt's forbidden to go within 15km of Mecca if you're not Muslim.
- 13of40 10y agoYou need a certificate signed by an Imam, which you can likely get at your local Islamic center. Challenges include convincing the Imam that you're not just getting it to sneak into Mecca, and being able to answer follow-up questions at the roadblock in Mecca, such as, "So you're Muslim, eh? Tell us the Five Pillars."
- flukus 10y agoNormal, throw, boomerang, blow up and...
- amenod 10y agoI very much doubt these places will allow virtual visitors if they forbid real ones. That is, I doubt Google will be allowed to drive through North Korea with their cars. :)
- jpreiland 10y agowould satellite imagery be sufficient?
- mememachine 10y agoI would guess that it will still work but at a (noticeably?) lower quality
- sp332 10y agoThe area around the White House is intentionally pixelated. Israel does not allow detailed maps in certain places - GPS navigation devices don't work there.
- j1vms 10y ago> The area around the White House is intentionally pixelated. Not for the Russian "Google Earth" counterpart, it ain't. ;)
- 6stringmerc 10y agoHaving seen plenty of high quality aviation maps in my day, which are quite incredible in the grand scheme of things, I've got some disappointing news about Area 51...
- Razengan 10y agoI'm mostly waiting for VR "tours" of completely fictional places, from popular fantasy/sci-fi settings, stories and art: https://medium.com/@Razengan/virtual-reality-fantasy-tourism-a27fcfc5e433 https://medium.com/@Razengan/virtual-reality-fantasy-tourism...
- lifeisstillgood 10y agoI am going to go with - "at last !" It is nearly 25 years since I read Snow Crash, and read the description of the virtual earth - able to dive down form Space, and look round cities, seeing data feeds in real time, including your own position... We are soooo close. Just don't trust the guy with the glass knives [#] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
- CobrastanJorji 10y agoDoes Google Earth have some sort of real-time weather capability? That would really help us get the last mile.
- mdrzn 10y agoWhy only on HTC Vive? Does this require huge computing power, or is it because of the controllers? I hope it'll become available on the Google Daydream phones.
- artofcode 10y agoMy bet would be the controllers, which would mean a Rift compatible release would be imminent when the Touch controllers are officially released in a month.
- wolrah 10y agoMost OpenVR/SteamVR titles more or less "just work" with Rift + Touch. Obviously the different controllers mean input mappings might be weird or lacking an equivalent and the in-game representation of the controller might be wrong, but the basics work as well as you could reasonably expect.
- RossM 10y agoSame with Daydream - odd that they didn't keep earth for the release.
- andybak 10y agoI've been using DK2 + Leap Motion to play some of the simpler Vive only titles. I'll try it and report back.
- gefh 10y agoPlease do! I'd like to avoid cluttering my desk with too many more gadgets.
- andybak 10y agoIt works on my DK2 when I used this workaround. https://github.com/Shockfire/FakeVive https://github.com/Shockfire/FakeVive It's pretty tough to use with the Leap Motion. However - you can run the tours via the mouse on the desktop. (Also - in another comment I mentioned you can edit the tours in a text editor so that might be enough to keep people happy.
- alasano 10y agoI've been dreaming of this for a long time now... holy crap. This is as close as we have to the Black & White (lionhead x EA) god feeling, except for beating up your cow/monkey/etc of course. Can't wait to try it out.
- robeastham 10y agoMe too! I've been wondering when this would turn up. I've been dreaming of flying around coasts and up mountains for a long time. I honestly think this will alter people's perceptions of time and place and space. I wonder if Google will have a service based on this that allows developers to add additional layers via an API and publish in their own app. That would be great. Sure would like to add some of the models from my VR Infinite Museum: http://imnh.org http://imnh.org
- flukus 10y agoIs that game ever going to get a remake?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- shostack 10y agoOh man, you just put that near the top of my VR remake list along with: - Sim Ant (or any Will Wright game for that matter) - Oregon Trail - Civ - Baldur's Gate - Battle Chess - Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? - A VR version of Where's Waldo
- strictnein 10y agoNow just make it so you can destroy the buildings as you walk around and you have VR Rampage. I'm honestly surprised no one has made a VR Rampage for the Vive. I tried to play around with the idea a little bit, but game development is just something I don't have any time for.
- mysterydip 10y agoI had the same thought. VR is the perfect place for such a thing. With the monster scale, the whole city can fit within the confines of a typical VR setup, and you get to destroy things without consequence. I want to take a stab at it, if and when I get the hardware necessary.
- rvanniekerk 10y agoThis is actually in development, it's called Maximum Override - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWKwgcRSZ0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWKwgcRSZ0U
- strictnein 10y agoInteresting. May have to check it out since it's in Early Access. Also this looks fun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKd6y-8a8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKd6y-8a8Y
- VikingCoder 10y agoWas playing with it - it's great. I was flying around the towns I know, but I'm reminded of the places that I need to go when I get a chance: Golden Gate Bridge The Washington Monument Disney World Yosemite Beijing The Grand Canyon
- iandanforth 10y agoIt looks very nausea inducing, even the video gave me a little bit of an issue. Did you experience any of that?
- haydenlee 10y agoI loved the app but I did feel a bit sick, even with their comfort mode turned on (which I really appreciate that they added). Probably won't go as wild with the flying next time but overall it was still a great experience. I should mention that I'm very perceptible to simulator sickness, even after using VR for over an hour every day for the past 2 years.
- shostack 10y agoI don't have a headset yet and this is my biggest fear before investing in one. I'm quite prone to motion sickness in games. Can you share any tips for using a VR headset without puking?
- efournie 10y agoIt really depends on the controls used for moving. I am quite sensitive too, even slow movements in VR give me nausea when I am not moving. But games that use teleportation for moving like The Lab are absolutely not nausea-inducing for me. Walking arnoud in room scale is also not a problem at all. A Vive with room scale is probably the best option at the moment for someone sensible to motion sickness. The funny thing about Google Earth is that even though you can "fly" over the map, it is coupled with a pulling motion with the hand controllers. My brain seems to interpret this hand motion coupled with the displacement as me pulling the landscape to me instead of me flying over the landscape. Because of this, I had absolutely no motion sickness at all in Google Earth. It is a motion scheme that I have seen in no other VR app and for me it is a very interesting achievement of the software.
- billconan 10y agoIs this based on 3D model or just 360 photo? I looked at the online demo, it doesn't appear to be 3D model. But if it is based on 360 photos, how does it perform the transition between different viewing locations? Streetmap, for example, can't do very smooth transition.
- VikingCoder 10y agoIt's 3D model, streaming download as you move around.
- bd 10y agoOnline demo is just 360 photos but real VR application seems to be fully 3D (from the videos). This would make sense as it's based on Google Earth which is 3D. Even WebGL web version of Google Maps is already 3D since some time ago. See e.g. Colosseum here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colosseum/@41.8950247,12.4841839,423a,20y,126.92h,62.84t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x132f61b6532013ad:0x28f1c82e908503c4!8m2!3d41.8902102!4d12.4922309 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colosseum/@41.8950247,12.4...
- BatFastard 10y agoSaying something is 3D is meaningless. 3D video is one thing, 3D models are totally different. From what I saw in demo, it looks like they are generating simple 3D models from the photos. Which is pretty damn cool!
- derrickdirge 10y agoGoogle Earth already has thousands of handmade 3D models, as well as auto generated models. Here is an interesting quora on where Google Earth sources their models from: https://www.quora.com/How-are-the-3D-models-of-buildings-generated-on-Google-Earth https://www.quora.com/How-are-the-3D-models-of-buildings-gen...
- elevensies 10y agoIt looks like 3D models. You can see the models through google maps on the normal web interface. If you go to a city, zoom in so your screen is a few blocks across and select "3D" view from the lower right corner. It should load 3D models of the buildings. Then if you hold Control which clicking and dragging, you should be able to freely rotate your view around the map's center point and see the buildings from any angle. EDIT: and I should mention, it works all over the place, not just cities, i.e.: https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.0775591,-71.9351097,67a,20y,223.62h,80.26t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.0775591,-71.9351097,67a,20y,2...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mobiuscog 10y agoThey need to get this working on the PSVR !
- ungzd 10y agoI thought Google Earth was abandoned, but seems they're still improving it.
- xanderstrike 10y agoIt's more or less folded into Google Maps since most of the Earth features can be done in a web browser with webGL now.
- toephu2 10y agoSeems like one of those things I'll play with for about 30 minutes, think it's cool, and then never touch it again.
- thearn4 10y agoTo be honest that's true for about 90% of VR demos/experiences that have been released...
- davidjnelson 10y agoTry rec room if you need a workout motivator. Vive is like a gym that's fun :-)
- runeks 10y agoReally? I think this would be perfect for learning directions, particularly if you're out traveling. Seeing a quick fly-through from the hotel entrance to some place you'd wanna go to would make it easy to get a sense of where it is, I think.
- GFischer 10y agoDepends on your use case. If it's better than Street View, I'll definitely use it a lot (once I get my hands on a compatible headset, that is). I use Street View a lot and I think it's one of the most amazing Google services.
- r00fus 10y agoHonestly what are you using it for, if you don't mind me asking?
- GFischer 10y agoWhenever I travel anywhere, I like checking it on Street View (even within my city). Also, I'm looking for a house to buy (more a wish than an actual search) and we always look at the neighborhood. Also to see where my family lives, and we kind of virtually travel (no money for actual travel for now). I used to work for an insurance company and the house insurers actually used it to give the houses we were insuring a quick check (if windows have bars, for instance) to avoid actually inspecting it if possible (and seeing which merited a more thorough inspection). I now work for a travel agency and they use it to see hotel's neighbourhoods.
- iraphael 10y ago> Available first on HTC Vive I can't find if it'll have support for DayDream View, which I just got for free with my pixel. Does anyone have more info?
- alexqgb 10y agoPer Mike Podwal, PM at Google, the team is entirely focused on the Vive (via Kent Bye's Voices of VR podcast https://player.fm/series/76331/165981404 https://player.fm/series/76331/165981404)
- rubicon33 10y agoOf course. Only available on the HTC Vive. I regret my oculus rift purchase.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- thearn4 10y agoFWIW, I use both and vastly prefer most things on the rift (especially flight and driving sims). The room-scale experiences on the Vive are fantastic and definitely the direction this tech will go, but the majority of the SteamVR experience are... unpolished? That's the best way i can describe it. SteamVR itself is also extremely buggy, but I've also had USB 3.0 issues on the Rift, so there are some issues on both platforms. But flight sims feel extremely natural (DCS World and Elite:Dangerous in particular), especially with Rift's ASW.
- oopsies49 10y agoSteam vr recently added asynchronous reprojection.
- davidjnelson 10y agoVive takes some fiddling. Make sure the lighthouses are secure and try a usb2 port. Those fixed it for me. And camera 60->30fps or off, maybe Bluetooth auto shut off also off.
- 10y ago
- secure 10y agoI played this for about 2 hours recently, and it’s so much fun! Flying around like that really gives you a perspective of your home town that you don’t usually get. For instance, I have discovered that there’s actually train tracks underneath a bridge over which I drive fairly frequently — from inside the tram, I never saw them. Notably, this is significantly better than the “liquid galaxy” installations one can find at Google offices. It’s smoother, more immersive, the controls are more appealing, and it looks better. This app definitely goes into the list of things I show people who are new to VR :).
- matthjensen 10y agoWhat else is on the list of things you show people who are new to VR?
- strictnein 10y agoFor me, the thing I start people off in is Job Simulator. Everyone understands how everything should work, so it's very natural. If they like action, then I typically have them try Space Pirate Trainer. Really fun, and you can play it pretty readily because everyone understands shooting robots.
- Zikes 10y agoFor the older crowd, I've started them off with more "experiential" games. theBlu and The Impossible Travel Agency have been great for this. Once they're ready for more interaction, I move to Waltz of the Wizard, Kismet, and The Lab's Secret Shop.
- berberous 10y agoNot OP, but I typically show people the Blu, Tilt Brush, Space Pirate Trainer, Audio Shield, and if they are up for horror, the Brookfield Experiment. I think Accounting and Gnomes and Goblins are also great little short experiences.
- jagbolanos 10y agoMy experience with the Vive: I would recommend Vanishing Realms, specially when you already have a sword and a bow. It's so fun to fight with the skulls. People seem to enjoy Tilt Brush, I find it nice but boring. Brookhaven Experiment is a nice 1 time game to get people excited and scared. Chair in the room is creepy, slow transitions but has a really well executed ambient. People tend to like Job Simulator, it's lite and funny. There are a couple of Vive demos that are also entertaining. In general people seem to like to grab things, throw, move around, feel large or small environments. On the PSVR: Battle Zone is my favorite at the moment Drive Club is very good too but it makes me a little bit nauseous, and I'm not usually a person who gets nausea often.
- Blackthorn 10y agoI hope one day they offer an API for it so it can be used as part of a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator.
- a300600st 10y agoOh please!!! I would play the crap out of that! But a real simulator, not just "be above the real world simulator."
- ferongr 10y ago>Google Earth VR is first available on Steam for the HTC Vive The lack of a common VR framework, and no expectation from consumers that a VR-enabled application will be cross-compatible between different systems is the main reason I have not yet bought a headset, and advise people asking me against buying. The VR landscape right now looks like it suffers from consolitis, and I will never support such business models.
- explodingcamera 10y agoSteamVr / OpenVr is a common VR framework and Google even decided to use it, but they just block all headsets but the vive...
- haydenlee 10y agoAnything that is built on SteamVR is cross-compatible with Oculus Touch, so not sure what your problem is. The only reason they don't market it as such is that Oculus Touch is not publicly available yet. As a current Touch owner I can assure you that every SteamVR app works with Touch today. Edit: However, ironically Google has put in a software check for HTC Vive and blocks any other headsets. I imagine they'll do a proper Oculus "launch" when Oculus Touch launches.
- shostack 10y agoI wonder about that...I could see it as strategically valuable for Google to have the Vive succeed and the Rift fail. If the Rift took over somehow (doubtful at this point) FB having control over its ecosystem would be bad news for Google because AR and VR are the future of where digital eyeballs will be.
- ngokevin 10y agoYou should check out WebVR (https://mozvr.com https://mozvr.com) with frameworks such as https://aframe.io/ https://aframe.io/, a VR web framework aiming to allowing to work across all platforms (mobile, desktop, Vive, Rift, etc.). The business model there is as you like, you can publish on your own without anyone taking cuts.
- 10y ago
- jliptzin 10y agoI really think something like this will displace some tourism/sightseeing (at least at the margins). I have done a ton of traveling all over the world and would much prefer a VR experience like this instead of cramming onto an airplane like cattle for hours, getting accused of being a drug lord at every border crossing, dealing with foreigners who seem to hate Americans, etc. Most tourist cities are pretty much the same anyway; a few jam packed attractions, the strip of overpriced fancy tourist trap restaurants, those gift shops you can buy cheap crap with the city's name on it, luxury hotels, adventure charter companies, etc. Anyway, sorry for the rant but I liken this to going to a football game in the stadium vs. watching at home and I'd much prefer the latter.
- qume 10y agoWow. You are why united states citizens have such a bad rep overseas. For the sake of the good people of the US im glad you will now only travel in VR
- bitdeveloper 10y agoGive me a break. A guy wants to reduce his carbon footprint on the earth and save money and just enjoy a scenic view and that makes him a bad guy?
- haydenlee 10y agoWhile it's a fair prediction in the long term, I find apps like these make me want to visit the physical locations even more. Just like seeing photos or videos of a foreign city may spark your intrigue, so does Google Earth VR, at least for me.
- zardo 10y agoSeeing the Sahara on a screen, and climbing a sand dune, are two very different experiences.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoDepends on one's imaginative capabilities, honestly. Yes, I'm quite serious. What I've been able to do in dreams (controlled or otherwise) rivals any sand-in-hand experience I could have while waking. I won't claim imagination is a pure replacement for personal experience, but there's something special about abstract thought.
- iambic 10y agoCannot wait to try this. Pixel is here, but headset is still coming.
- carlisle_ 10y agoI never knew I had a desire to act out a Godzilla fantasy until now.
- naavis 10y agoJust tried this with HTC Vive. One of the best VR experiences I've had.
- haydenlee 10y agoIt really is incredible. The UI design is amazing too.
- johansch 10y agoJust tried it on my Vive for ten minutes. So, of course, it's essentially Google Earth ported to VR. There's some obvious Snowcrash vibes to this. :) The left hand touch pad is used to switch between perspectives (top or "being a 100 meter tall giant walking around on the land") while the right touch pad is used to zoom in/zoom out. In places where they have 3d maps (like e.g. SF) it's amazing. I was also blown away by how fast the scenes loaded.. in Google Earth/Maps there is always a lengthy download process. This was almost instant. (I wonder why it was so slow before?) Walking around in cities as a giant is pretty fascinating. I guess this is why they went with the Vive as their first platform - roomscale VR really kicks as in this particular usecase.
- guiomie 10y agoPlease bring this to PS4 VR !
- canada_dry 10y agoOne of the best potential uses for this (and many similar VR apps) is for senior citizens and immobile folks. Imagine being able to travel back to your hometown or visit places you never got to on your bucket list. Priceless.
- tonyplee 10y agoAdd Pokemon VR Go and Google should assimilate half of the humanity into the Matrix.
- saurik 10y agoI wish Earth VR weren't written in so custom of an engine :(... it is severely missing some basic annotation and presentation tools (such as a 3D pencil) which would be comparatively easy to mix in if it used some off-the-shelf engine (such as Unity, which happens to be used by Tilt Brush). It kind of makes sense, though: it really just needs two cameras over the code they already have for Google Earth. It is written in OpenGL (as opposed to Direct3D), so maybe it won't be quite so annoying to throw together something minimal at the rendering layer?...
- AustinDev 10y agoThanks for answering the first question I had after digging through their site. A rendering layer would be fantastic. There are so many cool things that could be easily added to increase immersion or tell a story.
- saurik 10y agoFWIW, I have some initial reason to believe the "tour" mode it has involves the use of KML, so it might be possible to "easily" (still require some crazy hacking, but not so much) tell your own "story", but yeah: what I am really looking for is something where, from inside of VR, I can easily point at stuff and draw things and either take a recording or synchronize my state with another user. Earth VR was just such a great initial example of a place where I wanted to inject these kinds of features, so it is all the more annoying that it is one of the few apps that is built in a way to make that really hard :(.
- benjismith 10y agoAwesome. I'd love to use a VR headset to explore the visualizations at http://cosmicweb.barabasilab.com http://cosmicweb.barabasilab.com, and fly around through the superstructure of the universe!
- andybak 10y agoFor those without controller (i.e. Using https://github.com/Shockfire/FakeVive https://github.com/Shockfire/FakeVive to get it working on a Rift) - the tours are defined in text files inside \steamapps\common\EarthVR\assets\content\tours\ with the extension .textpb Editing the lat/lngs should enable you to visit wherever you choose.
- thenomad 10y agoI've just been trying this out. It's absolutely amazing. Awesome in the truest sense of the word.
- mtw 10y agoGood tool to use before visiting a place for holidays!