Google Maps... is your local area in sculpted 3D yet?

[MontyVeda]

I've been watching this feature in Google Maps slowly work its way up and around the country for years now. It stops about 10 miles south of Lancaster, as is evident in this image of Stake Pool near Pilling...

...lovely 3D on one side, then underwhelming 2D on the other.

This seems to have been the place local to me where 3D sculpting stops for a few years now, and looking around the country, there appears to be a north-south divide not far north of Preston and Blackburn.

Are you fortunate in enough to live in a Google Maps 3D area... or are you stuck in 2D like me?

EDIT... if you use the Chrome browser, everywhere is 2D because Google can't make their own browser work properly.

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

if you use the Chrome browser, everywhere is 2D because Google can't make their own browser work properl

So what browser did you use? Phone or PC?

I should be 3D but as we are largely forgotten here we might be 2D

 

[Beebo]

Yes. My house is 3D.
The image must have been done around Feb 2020 as the trees are not in leaf and the climbing frame which we removed in lockdown is visible.

 

[gom]

Gloucester & Cheltenham in 3D, but nowhere else in Gloucestershire I think (except near Bristol).
I’ve been assuming it’s cities / big towns.

 

[Edwardoka]

We too were recently blessed with photogrammetry. I remember when they first added it for the city around 2016/2017 and wasted so much time on it, but it took about 3 years more before this outlying region was given a pass.

I think the imagery is about 18-20 months old based upon landscape features that no longer exist and the new builds that have spread over every inch of green space since then.

 

[MontyVeda]

So what browser did you use? Phone or PC?

I should be 3D but as we are largely forgotten here we might be 2D

Firefox on a PC

Gloucester & Cheltenham in 3D, but nowhere else in Gloucestershire I think (except near Bristol).
I’ve been assuming it’s cities / big towns.

I was assuming it was towns and cities too, and i guess it mostly is, but the area west of Stake Pool (in my screen shot) is loads of villages all in 3D.

 

[ColinJ]

I was assuming it was towns and cities too, and i guess it mostly is, but the area west of Stake Pool (in my screen shot) is loads of villages all in 3D.

There is a site with static caravans in Stake Pool. Sometimes the 3D looks right, but with a few adjustments to the view a lateral offset gets applied so the tops of the caravans are rendered as grass or roads!

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

OOH we're on it. And there's a 3D version of Google earth which is much updated on the version I'm using.
Excellent. Thank you.

 

[ColinJ]

This video gives an idea of how they do it...

 

[MontyVeda]

Thanks Colin... fascinating.

Looks like the area up to Stake Pool is the edge of the loop the Google plane flew when photographing Blackpool.

I think Sketch-up used to be involved. On Google Earth (not maps) the memorial in Willybobs Park is in 3D, as is Carlisle bridge over the Lune... both look very sketch-upy and if it was the Google plane one would expect the rest of the area to be 3D too... but no.

I seem to recall the university had been sculpted too. but that's 2D again.

EDIT... Morecambe town hall is also the only 3D building in Morecambe.

 

[Svendo]

I’ve looked and work is (Rochdale) but home isn’t (todmorden) 3D on maps. The video was interesting, thanks Colin: thought the time lapse feature was particularly powerful.