And Worldwind, SkylineGlobe, and soon ArcGIS Explorer, can render textured buildings as well. However, GE 4 is certainly able to display 3D cities with the same or better quality. Kudos to Microsoft for doing this, and I look forward to seeing more cities. The addition of complete cities with photo-realistic 3D buildings is definitely superior to any the built-in cities currently available in Google Earth. VE3D definitely qualifies as a virtual globe, and has some very nice features.Now, since I’ve had a chance to use the new VE3D application for a few hours let me share some more thoughts.
#Virtual earth 3d com software#
Another significant one is coming out soon from GIS software maker ESRI called ArcGIS Explorer. There are several virtual globes out there: NASA Worldwind, SkylineGlobe, EarthSlot, and Celestia – to name a few. After all, if it drives Google, Microsoft and other companies to make even better products and data for free, we all win. Even Microsoft recognizes this (according to at least one of VE3D’s developers).īy the way, I think strong competition from other players in the virtual globe application field will ultimately be to the benefit to all of us wanting to use them. However, VE3D’s first beta is a long way from having the breadth of features developed in Google Earth over the past several years (GE was a product called Keyhole before Google bought it in 2004). I have now had a chance to play with VE3D (on another computer) and I do see some positives. Since I wasn’t able to run the program, I was disappointed, and reacted accordingly. I had expectations that Microsoft’s first release of Virtual Earth 3D would be a big event which would spawn really strong competition between Google and Microsoft. Yesterday I made some initial comments on the new Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D (VE3D).
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