Google Earth 3D to SketchUp?

August 2, 2006 12:36 PM

Can I grab the 3-D buildings from Google Earth and play with them in Google SketchUp?

Honolulu is one of the cities where someone in Google Earth has gone in and drawn up 3D illustrations of the various buildings in town. Google also bought SketchUp, which is a fantastic 3D tool that I've been obsessed with as of late. I've always wanted to do cool stuff with a 3D interface, and was just about to draw my own downtown before remembering that someone's already done a decent job of it.

Since they're the same company, now, there's gotta be a way to get those wireframes out of Google Earth into SketchUp! Right?

(This earlier question wanted something better than Google Earth, but wasn't SketchUp specific, and frankly, I'd be happy to start with what's in Google Earth if I could manipulate it.)

posted by pzarquon to computers & internet (3 comments total)

By the way, there's lots of ways to put stuff from SketchUp into Google Earth, but I'm looking for the converse.
posted by pzarquon at 12:41 PM on August 2, 2006

there's OGLE from eyebeam. Haven't tried it myself, and it looks a little techy, but the results seem good.
posted by grimley at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2006

Here's the official answer from Google: "If you're talking about the plain, gray buildings, Google Earth doesn't export its own 3D buildings (the buildings that are displayed when you select the "Building" layer in Google Earth). That information is licensed and can't be redistributed, so you can't import those buildings into SketchUp." I wonder if OGLE could grab them? Though it might just be a sick kind of fun to try and build Honolulu all by myself...
posted by pzarquon at 4:25 PM on August 3, 2006