Who hasn’t checked out Google Earth before booking a vacation abroad to see what the hotel or resort really looks like, plan your itinerary, or take a sneak peek at destinations you probably won't visit anytime soon? Since its launch in 2001, the Google Earth service has become super popular, with an estimated 30 million visitors per month.

Google’s 3D modeling offers an impressive coverage of around 2,500 cities across the globe, where we can visit New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Moscow, Sydney, and more. But is it really a service whose entire purpose is free for would-be travelers and the curious at heart, or is there a far greater potential here?

In recent years, we’ve witnessed a growing trend of using photorealistic 3D models professionally in key industry sectors. The ability to display accurate 3D citywide models not only saves time and money, but opens up new possibilities for simulations, and faster, better decision-making for architects, city planners, security companies, and game developers.

For gaming purposes, sometimes, it’s possible to have models that simulate or estimate reality, just as Microsoft did together with blackshark.ai. The popular flight simulator game relies on satellite images, information about buildings and streets, and a catalog of textures to simulate a city. The result, however, does not replicate reality, and doesn’t claim to, either. 

Professional apps for engineering, planning, security, and other sectors, need much more detailed and accurate information that’s in sync, a synchronized ‘digital twin’ if you will, of an entire city. But there have been significant barriers when it comes to producing a 3D model, or even gaining access to such a model. The modeling process of a given city or area starts with aerial photography (using an airplane), a costly, time-consuming technology that requires experienced professionals and know-how. The more you want to generate a model with higher resolution, the more complex the photography and flight process is. It continues by mathematically processing the photographs into a 3D model using special algorithms. Once the 3D model is ready, it can be presented in dedicated software for viewing, and working in 3D.

This is where the ‘real news’ comes into play. Several weeks ago, Google announced the launch of a new API, which makes it possible to stream cities modeled in 3D, to external systems. Simply put, Google allows using their 3D information within external viewing systems that know how to consume information in 3D tile format, the format of an open-source system, called Cesium.

Google’s photorealistic 3D tiles are accessible in glTF format (the standard OGC format), meaning, that the user can use any renderer that supports OGC 3D tile specification to build their 3D renderings. For example, Cesium is a basic open-source library for processing 3D visualizations, through which you can easily view Google’s 3D models. 

Google Earth API: Are we headed for a new world for developers and startups?

Having an API for Google models, might mean in the near future, a possibility to skip the complex steps of flight, photography, and 3D processing, and for companies interested in developing 3D apps, it may dramatically accelerate the use of 3D.

Based on the API developed by Google, gamers from all over the world may also be able to develop different game maps in the future, and make their games much more realistic, in line with the Metaverse. Apparently, the new integration might also accelerate the development of new apps and AR/VR applications in the worlds of tourism, PropTech, navigation, driving and autonomous vehicles, and much more.

In parallel, it’s too early to conclude what Google intends to do on the commercial side, and how applicable the use of APIs will really be. Now, Google presents a very limited playground, for research only, and its terms of use do not allow commercial deployment at all. What’s more, this is particularly heavy data, and there is a limit to the data’s continuous connection time. After using it for a few intensive minutes, the system is blocked for the remainder of the day. 

Another problem with Google Earth, is its inability to zoom in on elements on the ground at street level. In other words, even if the modeled details look good from the air, the closer you get to the angle of the street level viewing point, the blurrier and more distorted it looks (in the gaming industry, for example, this is a real problem).

Google has not yet published if, when and what the pricing model will be in a scenario whereby it removes the restrictions on data, and allows third parties full commercial use of the information. From past experience with Google products, it’s likely that this will mean significant costs for the development companies, and the end users. Such commercial use will also require Google to significantly increase investment in the service. Today, Google does not regularly update all of the models, and does not even commit to the frequency of updates, nor is willing to publish the update date. But the assumption is that once Google starts charging for the service, it’s expected to commit to frequent model updates, at least in the main cities. By the way, in Israel, there are no Google 3D models at all.

Google, being Google, probably has the ability to make a real difference in the 3D application industry as well, if it chooses to do so. As to when you will decide to put the revolution in practice, remains an open question at this time.

The author is the Co-Founder and CEO of Simplex3D, a company that develops technology and a SaaS-based platform for urban and architectural planning based on 3D models.