• ReadWriteWeb, Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:45 PM

Adding another dimension to its popular mapping service, Google has added a 3-D building maker to Google Earth. For some locations, Google already shows 3-D buildings in Google Earth, though it apparently wasn't that easy for users to add their own buildings to these maps. Building Maker, meanwhile, takes a game-like approach to crowd-sourcing the production of these 3D buildings.

Users can pick a building in any of the 50 cities worldwide where this project is now live, pick a building they'd like to model, and Google will present them with aerial images of the building. Users only have to align a 3-D "wireframe" model of the building with these images and a textured model of the building is automatically saved in the Google Sketchup 3-D warehouse.

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