that's an interesting thought, I'm not sure how google really gets everything but here are a few links:
This one is a write up concerning video to 3D http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.120.1726&rep=rep1&type=pdf >From wikipedia: Today, topographic maps are prepared using photogrammetric<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry> interpretation of aerial photography <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_photography>, LIDAR <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIDAR> and other Remote sensing<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_sensing> techniques. Older topographic maps were prepared using traditional surveying<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying> instruments. I believe Google is probably going the crowd sourced and maybe verification using public data sets http://sketchup.google.com/yourworldin3d/index.html I've played with this some, I'm personally a bigger fan of using Blender (also its totally free) has a bit more of a learning curve but there's lots of tutorials out there (just a matter of finding the tutorial for the right version) Although google maps does have the building right next to my office wrong in downtown Chicago so maybe there's no verification. I was looking into this last night some after I first saw the question and the USGS publishes records of topographical information free for download in a format called SDTS, seems cryptic and is bringing back waves of my programming language concepts class which is scary :z http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/sdts/standard.html You can also check out DAVID Laser Scanner, Demo is free and pretty cool, all you need is a laser that is going through a lens to make it a plane, like a levelling laser and a printer to make a backdrop for whatever you're scanning. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API For Flash" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-maps-api-for-flash/-/H9xR0xWnBBwJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-api-for-flash?hl=en.
