8 ms·
The Globe in 3D
- thomasfl 11y agoThe video says this made by Swedish car producer Saab. The went bankcrupt two years ago. So is this abandonware?
- noir_lord 11y agoSaab did a lot more than just car manufacturing so the brand lives on in a bunch of different places, it was "just" the Saab Automobile bit that went under.
- thecopy 11y agoSAAB designs and manufactures different defence products and fighter jets. For example, the JAS Gripen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
- gao8a 11y agoThey also made the awesome Carl G: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_recoilless_rifle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_recoilless_rifle
- unwind 11y agoSaab Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Group) is the kind of parent company of Saab Automobiles, which was the car manufacturer. The parent company is (much) more focused on defence technology, such as fighter jets and subs. The auto-playing video on their site was scary; I didn't have audio or headphones so I have no idea how the strange-looking name is supposed to be pronounced. "VR icon" seems awfully generic for a profiled product like this.
- SuperChihuahua 11y agoNo, Saab Group sold Saab Automobile to GM in 2000
- sorenjan 11y agoSaab is originally an acronymn for "Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolag", which means Swedish airplane incorporated. It's a defense company. They sold the car manufacturer to GM in 2000.
- kmfrk 11y agoWhatever Vimeo video was there before is "private" now.
- 3princip 11y agoIt's a shame all three suggested use-cases are military. Surely there must me some more noble use for such technology, in theory at least. Otherwise, I've noticed Google Maps has had a really nice 3D-view of some cities for a while now, better looking than the sample video here. Although the terrain modeling in this product looks pretty cool.
- ThomPete 11y agoGames could be one. Disaster planning, Robotics training perhaps.
- johansch 11y agoThis appears to be the military market Saab spin-off from the same/similar tech as in the consumer-oriented spinoff "C3 Technologies" that was sold to Apple a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172372 Both companies are/were located in Linköping, Sweden. (C3 Technologies was dissolved, some key people moved to Cupertino.) Some more details of the tech in this presentation from last year: http://www.fmv.se/Global/Dokument/Engelska%20webben/Thomas%20Ljungqvist_Vricon%20Sensorsymposium%202014.pdf http://www.fmv.se/Global/Dokument/Engelska%20webben/Thomas%2...
- Bedon292 11y agoThere are plenty of other uses for this technology, however I believe it is cost prohibitive at the moment. Satellite imagery is not cheap, and you need multiple images for the entire area you are interested in. Then it takes massive computing power to extract geographically accurate 3d from 2d images. Google has 3d of some cities, but I believe they are hand modeled, and would take a very long time to do in new areas. It is possible they use LIDAR to do the 3d as well, but that would require flying low over an area to collect the data which can also be cost prohibitive, and dangerous. I have yet to see anything on Google Maps that looks anywhere near the quality of the sample video. Totally possible I have missed it though, do you have a link to somewhere?
- 3princip 11y agoFor example: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5032338,-0.1282209,513a,20y,41.61t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5032338,-0.1282209,513a,20y,... Using Chrome and Earth view (and WebGL I think). This doesn't seem to have been done "by hand", looks to be algorithmic.
- Frozenlock 11y ago"Decision ready" Wait, does that mean something?
- sp332 11y agoIt means you can trust it to be good enough to make decisions based on the data, instead of needing to double-check with another source of information.
- scotty79 11y agoIt means that it's good enough to serve as a base to make decisions about what to drone-strike. Then again pretty much anything is.
- ryanmarsh 11y agoThis has meaning in combat arms. Most information is suspect. It can have a short shelf life, be biased, be incomplete or wholly inaccurate. Fog of war man. Most paper military maps were made off of surveys in the 70's and 80's. Things are more built up now, etc.. etc.. So let's turn to this fancy new laptop 3D map we've got. Imagine you're a special forces team and your calling up a fires mission (CAS, artillery, whatever). Let's say this fancy new satellite/3d whiz-bang map you're using to get a grid coordinate for the ridge full of bad guys happens to be off by just 100m, the bombs drop, miss the ridge line and sail onto the peaceful village in the valley floor below. Things like that don't go over well with the locals.
- filleokus 11y agoI believe this is somehow connected with the data Apple uses in their Maps application. Apple bought C3, at the time a division of SAAB, back in 2011. Seems strange that SAAB now is back in (almost) the same kind of business as what they sold of to Apple. http://jalopnik.com/5879255/how-apple-bought-saabs-futuristic-mapping-software http://jalopnik.com/5879255/how-apple-bought-saabs-futuristi...
- johansch 11y agoApple probably only bought the rights to use the tech in civilian applications.
- sorenjan 11y agoThat's exactly it.
- Bedon292 11y agoWhile it does appear to be similar at first look, they are actually different technologies. C3 requires a plane / helicopter / UAV to fly (very low, 500m) over an area to capture the data, then it can be processed into a 3d map. Seems similar to street view, but from the air. Takes continuous images of an area. Vricon however is using satellite imagery taken from just a few angles to then generate the 3d data. This means it can be done anywhere in the world, without needing to fly there. Which means the process could be started almost immediately, and without endangering anyone if the area is dangerous or remote.
- mangeletti 11y agoFirstly, this is amazing. Secondly, the music playing in the main splash video is a bit chiptune, and it's pretty awesome. Does anybody know who/what that is?
- ep103 11y agoseconding the song request!
- forrestthewoods 11y agoBest way to get me to not watch your video is to take away the controls and my ability to skip around at my leisure. Urgh.
- quadrature 11y agoAlso it did an extremely poor job of explaining what the product is and what features are offered.
- fsloth 11y agoDoes anyone have any detailed data on the cost structure of their offering. Or, ordering detailed satellite images for that matter?
- sagivo 11y agoI saw similar things in the Israeli Army 10 years ago, but still looks nice.
- plg 11y ago"WHAT IS THE PRICE FOR YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? Vricon offers competitive pricing" oh... competitive pricing. Well I feel better. Thanks for letting me know.
- Udik 11y agoOn a somewhat unrelated note, this http://alturl.com/qr2n3 http://alturl.com/qr2n3 and this http://alturl.com/coph3 http://alturl.com/coph3 are "decision ready" maps of the towns (Reston, Virginia and Linkoping, Sweden) where the company is located. Both might be useful to "special forces" for "decision support" and, who knows, "air operations".
- carussell 11y agoThose link to https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9556685,-77.3727741,5091m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9556685,-77.3727741,5091m/da... https://www.google.com/maps/@58.4080516,15.6156912,1715m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@58.4080516,15.6156912,1715m/dat... (For anyone who despises the use of URL shorteners here as much as I do.)
- Trombone12 11y agoIf I go to the root of the site[1] I get an error message about a bad database connection. [1] http://www.vricon.com/ http://www.vricon.com/
- Kiro 11y agoDidn't Google Maps have something like this before? I can't seem to find it.
- wodenokoto 11y ago"Vricon Inc. is a U.S. company providing high-quality services and products to meet our customers’ needs" Maybe they should work on that description.