Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Graphics Software Technology

The Thin Line Between Reality and Video Games 189

Posted by timothy from the rflightgear-has-some-nifty-scenery-too dept.
Boomzilla writes "San Jose Mercury news is carrying an article about a 2-year-old Silicon Valley start-up called Keyhole and their product Earthviewer. The Mountain View company makes interactive 3-D maps that fuse high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe. Since the start of the war, many news networks have been using the maps to zoom in on, over and around the Iraqi landscape to help viewers see where the war is being fought. Keyhole is financed by Sony Broadband Entertainment, graphics-chip maker Nvidia and others. Keyhole uses satellite images, aerial photos and other data to create 3-D maps that perform much like high-quality video games. Way cool!"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Thin Line Between Reality and Video Games More

The Thin Line Between Reality and Video Games

Comments Filter:
  • The amazing Carnack says (holds envelope to forehead) that the first use will be to design a game where you have a gun and other weapons and the object is to shoot down as many people as possible.

    They'll even have to the nerve to use the word "innovative" in the description.

    The whole gaming scene is sooooooooooooooooo stale. I used to game a ton and now get ill over the thought.

    • No, you're thinking along the wrong lines. We want live satellite info to feed into this thing. Send text messages in burning letters in your neighbors yard. Play pranks on friends painting embarrasing things on their roof. Maybe even communicate via laser pointer morse code. The possiblities are endless.

    • Stale? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Inoshiro ( 71693 )
      Oh, you mean the PC gaming scene. I enjoy Rez, Mario Party 4, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Xenosaga, Shenmue 2, etc, very much, thanks.
    • The amazing Carnack says (holds envelope to forehead) that the first use will be to design a game where you have a gun and other weapons and the object is to shoot down as many people as possible.

      I wonder what Johnny Carson would've thought about that fact that that game will probably be designed by the amazing Carmack?

  • So what has this got to do with gaming ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:15PM (#5580094)

    Earthviewer.com is 2 years old and has nothing to do with gaming, its purpose is merely to serve as a showcase for Nvidia's cards

    • Re:So what has this got to do with gaming ? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      EarthViewer is built on Intrinsic Graphics' Alchemy, a 3D gaming API that is used by a number of game developers for PC and console games. AFAIK, EarthViewer predated the NVidia promotion by a year or so (though I didn't buy it until the $79/year NVidia version came out).

  • Yeah right (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:16PM (#5580102)
    I was watching CNN today, and got a little worried when I realised I was pressing fire on my gamepad.

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @09:06PM (#5580526) Journal
      I was watching the skirmish at Abu Dhar unfold on MSNBC early Sunday morning. I now feel educated in a very minute way about what the horrors or war are like.

      Seeing those marines pinned down really freaked me out. They're regular guys out there with guns trying not to get killed.

      So then the tanks come in and start exchanging machine gun fire with the Iraqi soldiers. There was a tremendous amount of sparking and some explosions as they exchanged fire. Then one tank fired it's main gun into a sand berm, and I knew that I was watching a couple of guys die. Same thing a few moments later when another tank put a big hole in a building.

      My point?

      I think that if even 1 video game developer uses any footage like this as a basis for realism in a game, it'll be a sad day. This stuff is not entertainment. History yes. Fun stuff? Nope. Not by a mile.

      • Re:Yeah right (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Majkow ( 604785 )
        what about all of those WWII games out their showing planes getting shot up, dropping bombs, bombs exploding planes strafing targets that at one point were shooting back before they exploded into a ball of flames. Are you equally Appalled about all this footage. When the Gulf War v2.0 games come out and they are showing the said footage the generation of people playing them will not remember this whole shitty situation that some of the world have gotten involved in.
    • Most people would say "no". How is this different?

      Jan
  • Whoa! You could use this to make a map for [insert popular network FPS such as Quake]. Whouldn't it be cool?!

    Now that that's over, hopefully we won't worry about the six or so threads that would have resulted without this precautionary measure.
    • 'nuff said.
    • You could use this to make a map for [insert popular network FPS such as Quake].

      Not really, the resolution isn't nearly good enough for that. My house was about 15 pixels wide in earthviewer. There was a free trial at nvidia.com, I'm not sure if it's still there. Regardless of that fact, it's still an incredibly cool program. You could type in an address, and it would 'fly' to that location, downloading the pictures it needed as it went (broadband of at least 1mbit is a must for it to be useable). Wh

  • What does this have to do (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:17PM (#5580108)
    ...with comparing reality and video games? It has nothing to do with video games.

    That makes the who story pointless.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

    • You're thinking like a techie. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Syncdata ( 596941 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:26PM (#5580148) Journal
      They meant the interface. It's far more fluid then static images on a database.
      But that having been said, how hard would it be to add orbital defense satellites. Anyone up for a game of missile command 2k3?

    • Re:What does this have to do (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dr_canak ( 593415 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:42PM (#5580223)
      I also think there is the angle of who are key financiers of this technology; NVidia and Sony, two companies with a clear interest in home entertainment. At least that's the link I see. I've gotten used to the slightly hyped headlines on slashdot, but I'm not sure this one is really all that incorrectly provocative.

      jeff

    • underlying mathematics... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by VoidEngineer ( 633446 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:51PM (#5580252)
      This is just my two cents worth, but I would point out modern video games (specifically of the Quake genre) use rather robust vector mathematic models and are basically just "physics engines" that model the basic vector mathematics of reality (i.e. spacial orientation, time progression, velocity, momentum, particle physics, lighting, etc.).

      In answer to your question, this has to do with comparing reality and video games in regards to the "fact" (?) that video games are developing better physics engines, and reality is being better modeled by computer simulations, multimedia databases, etc.

      Fact of the matter is that, if one wanted to, someone could program the A.I. of a smart missle with the Quake codebase; alternativly, one could easily program a video game which uses satellite photos, networked video feeds, and whatnot...

      Anyhow... just my two cents...
      • I've read that they really don't stick very closely to the real world as far as physics go. Sure, the capability is there to make it more "real", but I don't think they want to. Being able to only jump 2 feet vertically kinda sucks, etc.
        • For some of the people that post at /., a 2 foot vertical jump would be beyond their capabilities. Prying themselves out of the chair in front of their computer would be enough work so that they would have to rest for a while.

  • Reminded me of something... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:18PM (#5580111) Homepage
    Slightly offtopic, but i heard about some guys who obtained blueprints and made a UT map of their high school. Kinda scary, but i guess its better than the real thing.
    • They must be stopped now! They are training for the real thing! Please God, stop them before they gather their teleporters and rocket launchers!

      </sarcasm>
    • You know, someone should create a company that could just come to your place of work, and create a map (using some already patented technology, no doubt), and scan in the faces of workmates, then email you the resulting deathmatch map/skins for UT or Quake. Got a problem with your manager? Just blow his head off a few times instead of getting mad!
    • I don't see why this is scary. Playing games in familiar places is fun. I'm planning a map (not for UT) of the area I live in for that reason.

    • Re:Reminded me of something... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShadowDrake ( 588020 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @08:05PM (#5580292)
      > Slightly offtopic, but i heard about some guys who >obtained blueprints and made a UT map of their high >school. Kinda scary, but i guess its better than >the real thing.

      Actually, I can see some perfectly non-violent uses for a FPS map of a school.

      -Downloadable 3D map of the school for new students, avoid the first day "What do you mean Room 701 is in Yaroslavl?" problems. Especially useful if the school tends to host events that bring outsiders on campus (Example: local LUG meets at a school. Why not a map where you start in the parking lot, and can walk all around campus, but the room holding the meeting has large lights set up around it to find it.)

      -Impressive demonstration that not everyone there is technically illiterate

      -Testing a proposed remodeling for appearance and workability

      -virtual walkthrough. I can't think of a good term for it, so an example application makes more sense. "Okay, we have real school shooters (or, less violently, a nasty clog in the school bathroom) reported here... and here"

      Remember that the FPS has been the only broadly used first-person 3D navigation scheme. VRML was pretty much DOA, so this is the only affordable tool for any application requiring a 3D walkthrough.
      • Remember that the FPS has been the only broadly used first-person 3D navigation scheme. VRML was pretty much DOA, so this is the only affordable tool for any application requiring a 3D walkthrough.

        I have a friend who used the Duke3D engine for a walkthrough of his workplace. He works on large campus with lots of "hidden" bits. He says the walkthrough has been well-received by people who have used it. (Especially since you can still kick the computer monitors!)

    • When I was at college, ohhhhh way back in '94 or '95, some of the kids created a Doom WAD of Trinity College. You can probably find it, if you Google for it.

      The best bit was the way the porters' office was full of those hairy monsters who threw fireballs. Beautiful.
    • I think those 2 whackos from the Trench Coat Mafia had Doom levels of the school.

      Never could find them though.

    • A couple of years ago I dreamed of making an open source racing game. People could send me photos of my neighboorhood for textures, along with upload models of their house and those nearby. With enough creative texture reduction, and reducing houses into repeatable blocks, I'd map about four square miles and be able to race though it. Technically its something of a pipe dream, but some might think it ought to be illegal because I wanted to speed though my neighboorhood doing acts that are obviously illeg

  • heh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cirrius ( 304487 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:20PM (#5580120)
    the site had to yank the trial version, since many news agency's were to cheap to actually purchase it.

  • military games (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    so it makes fighting seem realistic...except for the dying part. no wonder people are signing up for the army like there's no tomorrow.

    "Homer, if you wouldn't mind shooting some people as you leave."

    "Ah, the Denver Broncos..."

    • Re:military games (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:47PM (#5580240) Homepage
      so it makes fighting seem realistic...except for the dying part. no wonder people are signing up for the army like there's no tomorrow.

      warning: Anecdotal evidence ahead

      One of my friends joined the reserve a few months ago soon after his 18th birthday. In the past we'd frequently played realtime strategy and FPS games. He was really excited about the idea of potentially seeing combat and remarked how it would "be like playing Unreal - for real". I did try to reason with him by pointing out in "Unreal" there is no real-world consequences for failure. If you get shot, you feel no pain, you can't be taken prisoner and if you die - you can just hit the spacebar and come back.

      He also liked to play the America's Army game and remarked to me how "realistic" the gameplay was. To which I replied "If it was truly realistic, you couldn't escape/exit/shut the power off to make the game go away and you wouldn't be able to try a mission you died in again. Surely, they left these elements of realism out because they'd be detrimental to the appeal of recruiting."

      While I don't believe videogames can make someone who isn't inherently violent become so, I do believe they can potentially satisfy a craving for violence in those who already possess the disposition.

      I originally thought violent videogames had potential to be harmful due to the inaccurate depiction of the aftermath of violence, but after talking to my friend upon his return from basic training, I realized the army basically uses the same techniques to train soldiers. During the assult course my friend went though, no one was killed or injured. He didn't see his friends drop dead at his side, he didn't get shot or have to take the life of an enemy by means of lethal force. His training was exactly like playing Unreal for real - it taught him nothing about real war.
      • So what you're saying is that in basic training they should have shot him in the leg, captured him, beat him, and then leave him in a freezing cell with no food for a week? Or perhaps they should have formed two opposing teams and used live ammo? (You can't use paintguns because that would be fun and not war-like.) Or would you prefer the military teach 18 year old recruits a thousand ways to kill a person? Now seriously, answer this question without dancing around it, how would you expand their basic train

  • R&R Software... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Glove d'OJ ( 227281 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:23PM (#5580132) Homepage
    This sounds like a D20 (D&D-style license) game aid that I heard about a while ago. While there are not so many details on the site (pouncingtiger.com [pouncingtiger.com]), here is what I know about it:
    • It is a D&D-style game module
    • It is a very interesting story
    • It uses GIS-level maps

    The original concept of the game designer was to offer GIS-detailed maps for the 50 mile x 50 mile area around the main game sites. With the software he is using to create the maps, he can produce .avi fly-overs and very detailed maps, as well as "point of view" images taken from key perspectives.

    Player : GM, can we see that [mountain | cave | valley | battlefield] from here?
    GM : Let me fire up the map viewer, and then you can answer that question for yourself.

    Imagine being able to see maps and "dragon's eye views" of different areas of a gaming map. The idea sounds neat, and I think that he is going into playtesting.
  • something like this gets some heavy mainstream use... like being slashdotted. Perhaps its time to make some wise investments in companies like these.

    Has this company gone public?
  • I wonder where they got their terrain data from. AFAIK, Nasa's SRTM data is not yet publicly available. Anyway, it must be a huge effort to merge all these databases into accurate maps.

    • Re:This is great! (Score:2, Informative)

      by VirtualSquid ( 311810 )
      It's no secret where their data comes from. The details of who Keyhole licensed imagery from (Space Image, AirPhoto USA etc.) can all be found by digging around on their site.

      As for elevation, you're correct that SRTM isn't usable yet. Keyhole simply doesn't have better than the usual free 1km elevation data outside the USA. And 1km looks as bad as you might think.

      For those who care, see the review of EarthViewer 3D [vterrain.org] that i wrote last year. I don't believe much has changed except the price dropping

  • Interesting... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:25PM (#5580142)
    The Mountain View company makes interactive 3-D maps that fuse high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe. [snip] Keyhole uses satellite images, aerial photos and other data to create 3-D maps that perform much like high-quality video games.

    This new learning amazes me! Tell me again how high-resolution images and other data may be employed to create 3D mapsof the entire globe.
    • What you're seeing is a logical extension of one of Slashdot's most powerful features: duplicate stories. Much like the Power4's multiple cores in a single processor this story is the first to use the new duplication in a single story technology.

  • Theories (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Peterus7 ( 607982 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:25PM (#5580143) Homepage Journal
    ...3-D maps that perform much like high-quality video games. Way cool!"

    Some crackpots have theories that god plays videogames that we are characters in. If so, then now we get to see what his monitor looks like!

    But what does the load screen look like then?

    • So have all the global calamaties (i.e., the alleged Noah-flood incident, the death of the dinosaurs, etc.) just been system errors or crashes?

      Was the great flood truly a "Blue Screen of Death?" (snicker)
      • Nope! Ever played SimCity?

        It's obvious that God just got bored and went to the "disasters" menu. Granted, his menu seems to have a lot of cooler options than what is available to us in SimCity, but we'll get there one day.
        • I'd just love for them to come out with the ultimate god game. You play it at first like sim planet, then you can zoom in and work with cities like a strategy game, then work it in so it's more of a RTS, then a RPG, then a game like the sims, then a FPS.

          Of course, I wouldn't want to be on the Programming team for that... I might get smote!

  • 3D? Umm, yeah... (Score:5, Informative)

    by demonbug ( 309515 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:26PM (#5580150) Journal
    I've downloaded the trial twice in the last couple years (this has been around for quite a while now), and as far as I can tell the only 3D things in the software are the giant sphere that makes the earth and the video card required to run it. In the trial version, at least, there is no eleveation mapping or anything else. It is just flat photos pasted on a spherical Earth. It is pretty cool though, being able to pan and scan from one city to another smoothly. Really cool, but a little lacking in the 3D department.
    • I played with it when it was first released - it is pretty darn cool, but the price is also pretty darn steep if you're lacking in the Nvidia graphics card department ($599 for one year).

      If you have a Nvidia card, you're still looking at around $60 a year for a dumbed-down version without elevation data.

      It's a neat product, but of limited use at the present time.

      A more interesting (and worth-paying-for) modification along the same lines would be to have an interactive news/screensaver type program.

      How a
    • and as far as I can tell the only 3D things in the software are the giant sphere that makes the earth and the video card required to run it

      I've installed it too. It's not immediately apparent, but there are quite a few 3D elements to this app. 1st, you can turn on elevation mapping where you see the terrain elevation. 2nd there is a control that lets you control your angle of view, combined with the eleveation mapping it's a pretty damn cool effect.

      Ever since I installed it on my dad's computer he's be

  • Link for nvidia users (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:27PM (#5580155)
    the site seems not to be giving out earthviewer demo accounts but you can still download this if your a nvidia user.

    http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/EarthViewer /E arthviewerNVWeb.exe

  • Neal Stephenson and Snow Crash (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cef ( 28324 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:29PM (#5580164)
    So who else thought "Someone has gone and made the 'Earth' program out of Snow Crash", when they first saw the article?

    Then again, the software has been around for a while. I wonder if the people who wrote it got the idea out of Snow Crash?

    All I wanna know is, where is Hiro, and who is playing the part of Raven?

  • Thin Line (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Zurd3 ( 574979 )
    Yes the line between reality and virtuality is always shrinking (See Serial Experiment Lain for proof). For now we are only able to see some geographic views of location in Iraq. Maybe someone'll develop a tiny java application to control a tank or something right in the middle of the war? It is so tempting when looking at the war on TV, it's so close to us ! ^_^ .. Kidding aside, I hope this war will finish soon and there won't much deaths!) PLUR !

  • 2 weeks then you'll erase it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:34PM (#5580185) Homepage Journal
    I had this software on my system, maybe 2 weeks (ok a month because thats how long the free trial lasts)

    The images produced are amazing, but after you get through seeing your house, grandma's house, cousins house, freinds houses, your work, all from the air it kind of get's boring.

    The user level version produces some good maps, but if you're really interested in earthviewer, you should sign up for the corporate trial. Even though all the images produced from the corporate trial have a watermark of keyholes logo on them, the detail is just too good to pass up.

  • Despite all the video game talk. . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fritz Benwalla ( 539483 ) <randomregs&gmail,com> on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:36PM (#5580189)

    I played with Earthviewer about a year ago, and it's definitely cool, but I think you'd have to change it too fundamentally to get it to work with gaming. Quake engines and such are really much more optimized for presenting textures in the fast real time need for games, and Flight Sim already does some this style of progressive resolution depending on your point of view and zoom level.

    For me the real difference is how well it integrates with huge databases. It seems as though Keyhole's strength is in being what they call a "streaming geospatial browser." A potential front end for every database with topographical hooks. A big (waay big) market in situations where visual representation of that data is important.

    I'd like to hear more input on the "eye candy" arguement though - that being able to visually browse this data has limited value when compared to the cost of enabling it with the viewer. TV and flyovers are cool, but are there concrete applications where this style of presentation will help people get insight into data? Remember that we can still look at large data sets in 2D and in static 3D - does it help to be able to fly over it and zoom down in real time?

    -------

    • There are 2 different styles of rendering, BSP-based (like quake) and Quad- or Oct-tree based, as used by morrowind (which actually used both, BSP for indoors, quadtree outdoors) and other outdoor 3d engines.

      It is extremely difficult to on-the-fly convert to BSP format, but octtree mappings should be pretty straightforward, even when you're drawing data on the fly from a fat old database.
    • Fritz, your comments are pretty insightful, but not totally on the money. Quake engines are optimized for some things, like culling and sorting of polygons for indoor environment. And flight sims can make certain optimizations, like knowing you can't go faster than X and all the data is on your hard disk (as opposed to downloaded in realtime). If you were to see a version of earthviewer (which I have) that was running off a full local cache of data, you'd see that it's way beyond current flight sims and Qua
    • It would be beyond fantastic for the next Civilization game, though. Especially if the civ people fix some of the combat innacuracies (like a pikeman killing mobile infantry, or calvary destorying an army of infantry)

  • Satellite imagery (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:39PM (#5580207)

    FYI the US spy satellite range is the Keyhole Series [howstuffworks.com]. Has been taking pictures of our earth for more than 30 years.

    Tho a lot isnt know about current generation (or even the past 2 generations), the US has released [space.com] older footage.

  • CNN, elevation data, 3D (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:40PM (#5580213)

    They've been using Earthviewer on CNN several times a day in the last few days. The current version of the client supports elevation data, USA yellow page searches (show me all the Taco Bells), street address searching, and cool image overlays that are being used on http://bbs.earthviewer.com to show weather, archeology, and battle movements in Iraq.

    With the elevation data its very much 3D, but most man-made structures don't register (except Hoover dam).

  • An old idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WampagingWabbits ( 627551 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:41PM (#5580220)

    Both skylinesoft.com, and before them mobilemaps.com have worked on something similar. The mobilemaps 3D viewer was available in 1996! It was at VGA resolution, fit in 640K, and ran a lightening speed fractal landscape engine, along with web hyperlinks.

    3D maps is an interesting market, because users expect reality from these maps and do not understand the limitations of the data, and why it doesn't look like real-life. One interesting application mobilemaps tried was mapping ski resorts, which attracted reasonable interest.

    Mobilemaps, has since moved away from 3D maps to focus on providing an open-source search & locate engine that can be combined with 2D or 3D maps.

  • A False View of Reality? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @07:58PM (#5580274) Homepage
    Surely this is a false view of reality?

    Despite best efforts, slabs of raw data will be out of date. Details such as the exact form of foliage would have to be filled in by an 'educated guess'. Are sensitive military facilities accurately mapped?

    What indication is there to the user that the information they are viewing may not be completely accurate? How can a user judge the accuracy of each part of the scene they are viewing?

    I see a danger that ultra-realistic, inaccurate, renderings may widely replace real world observations, leading to a reduction in available information, even though the volume of misinformation has increased.

    • I considered purchasing some satelite images at one point in time; unfortunatly they are way too pricy for an individual. But, it is CHEAP if you have an absolute NEED for the images.

      You can buy images on the open market of almost anywhere in the world. Ironicly enough, images of the U.S. are easier to find and aquire for cheap than anywhere else in the world.

      (Yes, the data may be filtered if key locations are of interest. think Area 51 for instance. Although there are images released from there as well.)

    • Re:A False View of Reality? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Monday March 24, 2003 @09:23AM (#5582703)
      Are sensitive military facilities accurately mapped?

      When I was a cadet, the maps we used were accurate enough that individual trees in a forest were correctly represented, you could even take bearings off them for navigation (altho' if possible we used more permanent structures!). I once won an orienteering competition by literally leading my squad from tree to tree while the other squads messed around looking for traditional landmarks.

      leading to a reduction in available information, even though the volume of misinformation has increased.

      That's a very real problem. Observe how all the 24-hr news channels are filling their programmes with exactly the same stuff, even tho' the reality seems to be "not much has changed in the last 12 hrs".

  • SGI had a similar globe demo like that... (Score:5, Informative)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @08:02PM (#5580280) Homepage
    I'm glad to see that someone is finally putting high resolution map pan/zoom apps into the market, the technology has been available for awhile and continues to get cheaper. Silicon Graphics used to demonstrate a similar application years ago to promote their InfiniteReality graphics engine... they had ~500 GB of earth texure data on a massive disk array and were able to zoom down to 0.125m (aerial photo) resolution in a few cities. All realtime and at almost any speed. Butter-smooth. Crazy cool. The most impressive (or nauseating!) demo was the moon-to-DisneyWorld bungie jump, which made the audience gasp and the RAID grind like mad. These days I've heard their texure database is large and now even has elevation/terrain data. I'd love to see what the IR4 can do!
    On the PC side of things I would imagine this is now possible on a much smaller budget. High-end PCs finally have the gfx and I/O thruput (8x AGP and PCI-X, for example) to pipe the texture data fast enough.
    Keep blurring that line, it makes the games more impressive and gives even more possibilities for real world applications.
  • I tried this once I got my GF4, it was pretty cool, but some of images were outdated. Other than that, it was pretty cool

  • A worse blurring of gaming vs. reality.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by SurturZ ( 54334 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @08:26PM (#5580378) Homepage Journal
    ...was Sony's questionable decision to release the "Grand Theft Auto:Vice City" radio soundtracks on CD.


    Yesterday, I put it on the car CD player and accidentally ran down a moped and three pedestrians before I realised I wasn't playing the game.

  • would you like to play a game?_
  • A few years ago, NBC used [cdmag.com] Jane's F-15 and Fleet Command to demonstrate attacks on Iraq. And the U.S. Army uses Steel Beasts [steelbeasts.com] to train its tank crews (in addition to higher-end solutions).

    btw, now the U.S. Army is contributing to the development of Steel Beasts 2.

  • Similar 3D stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cruachan ( 113813 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @08:52PM (#5580464)
    The major stumbling block with generating this kind of stuff is the vast amount of real-world knowledge that has to be incorporated into the system AI.

    We've been developing a couple of similar products for several years now. GenesisII attempts to create photorealistic images based on GIS data, and Landscape Explorer is a more traditional 'Image Overlay' product (there's also an online embedded ActiveX version). Site is at www.geomantics.com [geomantics.com]

    Both these programs are intended to take a 'feed the data in and get the image' type of approach rather than the 'build your world from blocks' approach you'd get with a 3D modeller application.

    With the 'Image Overlay' program this is relatively straightforward because the data is not that complex, but when you go for something more detailed and 'photorealistic' like GenesisII then complexity of the solution seems to increase exponentially with the degree of detail needed. For example modelling a mid to far distance mid-western US landscape is actually quite easy, doing it in Europe is vastly more complex because of something as apparently simple as the hedgerow and field pattern. Similarly really high mountains (Rockies, Himalaya) are easy, Mid range stuff with confirers is not too bad, but the real challenge is the English Cotswalds because of the shear complexity of a 3,000 year old mixed deciduous forest/farmed/grazed landscape.

    Even with Satellite data the problems on landscape are complex. Sure I can tell it's a forest, but is it Oak or Birch? It may not matter if I'm viewing from a long shot, but closer up it does. How do I tell? get better data? (available, expense), guess (ok for games maybe, but it's not reality), or use an algorithm (you have an tree/soil/landscape distribution algorithm to hand?)

    And that's before we've even considered villages and towns

  • /.'d (Score:4, Funny)

    by Door-opening Fascist ( 534466 ) <skylar@cs.earlham.edu> on Sunday March 23, 2003 @08:52PM (#5580466) Homepage
    Hmmm. I hope CNN has a backup plan for maps, because it looks like it [earthviewer.com] is the latest victim of Shock and Awe.
  • Ken Silverman [advsys.net] has a program that will render a globe [advsys.net], albiet a little more primitive than Keyhole's. In fact, its use is more for stargazing than earthgazing, but there you go.

  • Detail level (Score:4, Informative)

    by FRiC ( 416091 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @09:00PM (#5580503) Homepage
    This has been around for quite a while. There are two versions to download, an nvidia specific one, and one that works with any video card. But the only difference I can see is that the nvidia specific version has the nvidia logo on the corner.

    The level of detail varies with the region. The last time I checked out the program like a year ago it had extremely detailed maps for most regions of the US, Japan, and Afghanistan. The maps weren't updated in real time though.
  • Read Sci-fi book, build thing from book, ???, Profit... (World Map ala SnowCrash) I want the "librarian".
  • I wonder what is going to put a greater load on the keyhole/earthviewer servers...the Slashdotting or the AmericanPublicThirstForWarKnowledge-ing.
  • from reality, I don't think video games pose any threat at all.
  • My chief complaint with the software as it was six months ago, was that the level of detail varies so much from place to place. Sure, LA was really detailed, but my whole town in New Hampshire was just a green blob. (On the other hand, I looked up my parents' house and there was enough detail to make out the house, the garage, and the driveway. A little spooky, I must say)
  • I wrote in my journal here on slashdot recently that I wanted this technology.
    had I know I'd be getting that wish granted, I'd have instead wished for Naomi Watts.

  • This sort of visualization is easy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:03PM (#5580990)
    I am with a student research group that makes visualizations the exact same as the earthviewer. It is incredibly easy to do. I have laughing my butt of thinking how much the news media is probably paying for these visualizations. All terrain data is from freely available DEMs and almost all the satellite images are free as well. Load these things up in a few programs, get them into Bryce, and you have CNN ready visualizations - for free! Someone tell CNN to call me!
  • Can anyone say IPO?
  • I remember this line from playing Ultima IV (the first one to hook me in) on an old Apple iic. The line shows up with a good book. It may be easier to achieve but it is an old theme.

  • Geography lesson for Americans. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ashitaka ( 27544 ) on Monday March 24, 2003 @12:39AM (#5581440) Homepage
    OK. You've downloaded the NVidia demo version and have found your house. Neat.

    Now, enter Bagdad in the place box and watch as you fly out over the Altlantic, past Europe and down into the Middle East.

    Without a doubt Earthviewer is the greatest teacher of Where The Fuck These Places Are!!!
  • I wonder if any of the founders were ex-NRO?
  • The Mountain View company makes interactive 3-D maps that fuse high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe... Keyhole uses satellite images, aerial photos and other data to create 3-D maps that perform much like high-quality video games.

    Can we just moderate this whole story as redundant?
  • A collection of links, software, and information for doing this yourself is at:

    vterrain [vterrain.org]

    Naturally, this includes links to the NASA Blue Marble site and the SRTM project and many others.
    My own viewer isn't due for some time yet :-)

  • Unlike the "Al Gore Claimed To Have Invented The Internet" [snopes.com] (Hi, Declan [wired.com] :-), Al Gore did make a speech about coming up with this idea, in 1998, about N years after Snow Crash. According to at least one article, he woke up in the middle of the night in February 1998 with the idea.
    Speech text, 1998 [bakersfield.ca.us]
    www.digitalearth.gov website [digitalearth.gov]
    CNN article on the satellite version [cnn.com]
    NASA Triana Funding in Doubt [space.com]
    Triana built, mothballed waiting potential future launch [nasa.gov]

    I suspect this was probably discussed in Slashdot ba

  • There are lots of Earth Viewer projects out there, either on the net or off.
    • Microsoft Terraserver.com [terraserver.com] is one of the big ones, selling images from lots of satellite sources. Originally a 1998 joint venture with MS, USGS and Compaq. Free lower-res stuff, subscription medium-res, high-res pictures for sale.
    • SRI Digital Earth [sri.com] -
      Talk
      - DARPA project, some good stuff.
    • LivingEarth.com [livingearth.com] and EarthImaging.com [earthimaging.com] - more hi-res maps.
    • Fourmilab.to Earth Viewer [makeashorterlink.com] also does satellites, stars, etc. Slightly overworked du

Slashdot Top Deals

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Close