Google Earth VR

https://vr.google.com/earth

by dgrove • 10 years ago

460 147 10 years ago

vr.google.com

toomanycooks666• 10 years ago

splooge

strictnein7• 10 years ago

Honestly, I'm visiting Mecca tonight. And then Tehran. And then North Korea.

strictnein7• 10 years ago

Why the downvote? How visiting forbidden places isn't on the top of mind for people using this is beyond me.

Area 51, White House grounds, Russian military bases, Syria. I know the experience will vary, but think big.

RileyJames• 10 years ago

You can go to Tehran & North Korea, just need to apply for a visa.

derrickdirge2• 10 years ago

I thought Mecca was like, the opposite of a forbidden place.

amenod• 10 years ago

I very much doubt these places will allow virtual visitors if they forbid real ones. That is, I doubt Google will be allowed to drive through North Korea with their cars. :)

6stringmerc2• 10 years ago

Having seen plenty of high quality aviation maps in my day, which are quite incredible in the grand scheme of things, I've got some disappointing news about Area 51...

Razengan2• 10 years ago

I'm mostly waiting for VR "tours" of completely fictional places, from popular fantasy/sci-fi settings, stories and art:

https://medium.com/@Razengan/virtual-reality-fantasy-tourism...

lifeisstillgood• 10 years ago

I am going to go with - "at last !"

It is nearly 25 years since I read Snow Crash, and read the description of the virtual earth - able to dive down form Space, and look round cities, seeing data feeds in real time, including your own position...

We are soooo close. Just don't trust the guy with the glass knives

[#] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash

CobrastanJorji• 10 years ago

Does Google Earth have some sort of real-time weather capability? That would really help us get the last mile.

mdrzn• 10 years ago

Why only on HTC Vive? Does this require huge computing power, or is it because of the controllers? I hope it'll become available on the Google Daydream phones.

artofcode• 10 years ago

My bet would be the controllers, which would mean a Rift compatible release would be imminent when the Touch controllers are officially released in a month.

RossM• 10 years ago

Same with Daydream - odd that they didn't keep earth for the release.

andybak4• 10 years ago

I've been using DK2 + Leap Motion to play some of the simpler Vive only titles. I'll try it and report back.

wolrah• 10 years ago

Most OpenVR/SteamVR titles more or less "just work" with Rift + Touch. Obviously the different controllers mean input mappings might be weird or lacking an equivalent and the in-game representation of the controller might be wrong, but the basics work as well as you could reasonably expect.

baobrain• 10 years ago

I'm confused about this as well - this could be a great application for "casual" vr like daydream.

alexqgb2• 10 years ago

As a title, sure, but that's about it. As a product, it would be a fundamentally different thing. That's inevitable when one system offers full position tracking and 300 watts of power while the other tracks rotational motion only and runs on 3 watts.

dag11• 10 years ago

They had to do a crazy amount of optimization just to the Earth engine to make it work in 90fps VR.

Here's a talk one of the devs gave at SIGGRAPH a few months ago about how they made it work: https://vimeo.com/177549565

andybak4• 10 years ago

Weird because once you get it running via the hack it runs perfectly fine. I'm running it on a DK2 and the only issue is controller emulation.

thebiglebrewski• 10 years ago

I agree! I don't understand these two separate arms of Google VR. Couldn't they do the processing power on the server side if you have a fiber connection?

elaus• 10 years ago

VR needs 90fps with only a few milliseconds of latency between moving your head and seeing the movement in your headset. Both can't be achieved by streaming from a remote server…

johansch2• 10 years ago

The roomscale VR that let's you walk around in cities as a giant is really the killer feature of this tech demo.

alasano• 10 years ago

I've been dreaming of this for a long time now... holy crap. This is as close as we have to the Black & White (lionhead x EA) god feeling, except for beating up your cow/monkey/etc of course. Can't wait to try it out.

robeastham• 10 years ago

Me too! I've been wondering when this would turn up. I've been dreaming of flying around coasts and up mountains for a long time. I honestly think this will alter people's perceptions of time and place and space.

I wonder if Google will have a service based on this that allows developers to add additional layers via an API and publish in their own app. That would be great.

Sure would like to add some of the models from my VR Infinite Museum:

http://imnh.org

flukus• 10 years ago

Is that game ever going to get a remake?

shostack7• 10 years ago

Oh man, you just put that near the top of my VR remake list along with:

- Sim Ant (or any Will Wright game for that matter)

- Oregon Trail

- Civ

- Baldur's Gate

- Battle Chess

- Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

- A VR version of Where's Waldo

strictnein7• 10 years ago

Now just make it so you can destroy the buildings as you walk around and you have VR Rampage.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made a VR Rampage for the Vive. I tried to play around with the idea a little bit, but game development is just something I don't have any time for.

mysterydip• 10 years ago

I had the same thought. VR is the perfect place for such a thing. With the monster scale, the whole city can fit within the confines of a typical VR setup, and you get to destroy things without consequence. I want to take a stab at it, if and when I get the hardware necessary.

rvanniekerk• 10 years ago

This is actually in development, it's called Maximum Override - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWKwgcRSZ0U

strictnein7• 10 years ago

Interesting. May have to check it out since it's in Early Access.

Also this looks fun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKd6y-8a8Y

billconan• 10 years ago

Is this based on 3D model or just 360 photo?

I looked at the online demo, it doesn't appear to be 3D model.

But if it is based on 360 photos, how does it perform the transition between different viewing locations?

Streetmap, for example, can't do very smooth transition.

bd• 10 years ago

Online demo is just 360 photos but real VR application seems to be fully 3D (from the videos).

This would make sense as it's based on Google Earth which is 3D.

Even WebGL web version of Google Maps is already 3D since some time ago. See e.g. Colosseum here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colosseum/@41.8950247,12.4...

BatFastard• 10 years ago

Saying something is 3D is meaningless. 3D video is one thing, 3D models are totally different.

From what I saw in demo, it looks like they are generating simple 3D models from the photos. Which is pretty damn cool!

VikingCoder2• 10 years ago

It's 3D model, streaming download as you move around.

elevensies• 10 years ago

It looks like 3D models.

You can see the models through google maps on the normal web interface. If you go to a city, zoom in so your screen is a few blocks across and select "3D" view from the lower right corner. It should load 3D models of the buildings. Then if you hold Control which clicking and dragging, you should be able to freely rotate your view around the map's center point and see the buildings from any angle.

EDIT: and I should mention, it works all over the place, not just cities, i.e.: https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.0775591,-71.9351097,67a,20y,2...

VikingCoder2• 10 years ago

Was playing with it - it's great. I was flying around the towns I know, but I'm reminded of the places that I need to go when I get a chance:

Golden Gate Bridge

The Washington Monument

Disney World

Yosemite

Beijing

The Grand Canyon

iandanforth• 10 years ago

It looks very nausea inducing, even the video gave me a little bit of an issue. Did you experience any of that?

nickthegreek• 10 years ago

I just spent 20 minutes in it and the controls are well done. I had no nausea issues. I hope it is loading the models to local cache so that on repeat viewings I wont have the texture lag. Pretty impressive though.

WhiteNoiz3• 10 years ago

By default it has some comfort options enabled. Basically it blanks out a good portion of your peripheral vision which keeps you from getting sick. Honestly it's one of the best examples of non-nausea inducing locomotion yet.

haydenlee5• 10 years ago

I loved the app but I did feel a bit sick, even with their comfort mode turned on (which I really appreciate that they added). Probably won't go as wild with the flying next time but overall it was still a great experience. I should mention that I'm very perceptible to simulator sickness, even after using VR for over an hour every day for the past 2 years.

davidjnelson3• 10 years ago

Highly recommend Yosemite. When you go, don't miss the vernal/Nevada falls hike!

mobiuscog• 10 years ago

They need to get this working on the PSVR !

ungzd• 10 years ago

I thought Google Earth was abandoned, but seems they're still improving it.

xanderstrike• 10 years ago

It's more or less folded into Google Maps since most of the Earth features can be done in a web browser with webGL now.

toephu2• 10 years ago

Seems like one of those things I'll play with for about 30 minutes, think it's cool, and then never touch it again.

thearn42• 10 years ago

To be honest that's true for about 90% of VR demos/experiences that have been released...

davidjnelson3• 10 years ago

Try rec room if you need a workout motivator. Vive is like a gym that's fun :-)

runeks• 10 years ago

Really? I think this would be perfect for learning directions, particularly if you're out traveling. Seeing a quick fly-through from the hotel entrance to some place you'd wanna go to would make it easy to get a sense of where it is, I think.

GFischer2• 10 years ago

Depends on your use case. If it's better than Street View, I'll definitely use it a lot (once I get my hands on a compatible headset, that is).

I use Street View a lot and I think it's one of the most amazing Google services.

r00fus• 10 years ago

Honestly what are you using it for, if you don't mind me asking?

iraphael• 10 years ago

Available first on HTC Vive

I can't find if it'll have support for DayDream View, which I just got for free with my pixel. Does anyone have more info?

alexqgb2• 10 years ago

Per Mike Podwal, PM at Google, the team is entirely focused on the Vive (via Kent Bye's Voices of VR podcast https://player.fm/series/76331/165981404)

rubicon333• 10 years ago

Of course. Only available on the HTC Vive.

I regret my oculus rift purchase.

thearn42• 10 years ago

FWIW, I use both and vastly prefer most things on the rift (especially flight and driving sims).

The room-scale experiences on the Vive are fantastic and definitely the direction this tech will go, but the majority of the SteamVR experience are... unpolished? That's the best way i can describe it. SteamVR itself is also extremely buggy, but I've also had USB 3.0 issues on the Rift, so there are some issues on both platforms.

But flight sims feel extremely natural (DCS World and Elite:Dangerous in particular), especially with Rift's ASW.

oopsies49• 10 years ago

Steam vr recently added asynchronous reprojection.

davidjnelson3• 10 years ago

Vive takes some fiddling. Make sure the lighthouses are secure and try a usb2 port. Those fixed it for me. And camera 60->30fps or off, maybe Bluetooth auto shut off also off.

rubicon333• 10 years ago

Thanks, this is slightly reassuring. I'm honest when I say, I've really worried that I made the wrong decision when I purchased the oculus. Hopefully once my Touch controllers arrive, I'll feel less so.

Any other recommendations you have for games on the Rift? I've been playing Obduction and, it's pretty cool... Definitely spent the most time on that game compared to any other.

haydenlee5• 10 years ago

It's built on SteamVR so it supports Oculus natively (edit: however Google has added a software check to Google Earth VR to block any other headset, which I imagine they'll remove once Oculus Touch launches). Since you don't need hand controllers for the guided tours it should still be a pretty good experience. And Oculus Touch in 3 weeks will allow for the full experience. As an early Touch owner I think a lot of Vive owners will be regretting their purchase.

shostack7• 10 years ago

I haven't tried the Vive but I recently tried the Touch the Microsoft store at Stanford mall. Annoyingly enough they had a Vive in a glass display but didn't have both available to demo simultaneously.

The experience in that wizard duel game was pretty immersive, and it was cool to kind of be able to wiggle your fingers. How would you compare the oculus experience to the Vive given that it still isn't room scale VR?

leoc• 10 years ago

There's already a hack for it https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5dcgts/how_to_remov... , and it's likely to be enabled for the Rift when Touch is released.

rubicon333• 10 years ago

awesome, thank you

TwoBit2• 10 years ago

The Rift has better apps in general than the Vive, so you're fine. This will come to Rift and others in time.

secure3• 10 years ago

I played this for about 2 hours recently, and it’s so much fun!

Flying around like that really gives you a perspective of your home town that you don’t usually get. For instance, I have discovered that there’s actually train tracks underneath a bridge over which I drive fairly frequently — from inside the tram, I never saw them.

Notably, this is significantly better than the “liquid galaxy” installations one can find at Google offices. It’s smoother, more immersive, the controls are more appealing, and it looks better.

This app definitely goes into the list of things I show people who are new to VR :).

matthjensen• 10 years ago

What else is on the list of things you show people who are new to VR?

strictnein7• 10 years ago

For me, the thing I start people off in is Job Simulator. Everyone understands how everything should work, so it's very natural.

If they like action, then I typically have them try Space Pirate Trainer. Really fun, and you can play it pretty readily because everyone understands shooting robots.

berberous3• 10 years ago

Not OP, but I typically show people the Blu, Tilt Brush, Space Pirate Trainer, Audio Shield, and if they are up for horror, the Brookfield Experiment. I think Accounting and Gnomes and Goblins are also great little short experiences.

jagbolanos• 10 years ago

My experience with the Vive:

I would recommend Vanishing Realms, specially when you already have a sword and a bow. It's so fun to fight with the skulls.

People seem to enjoy Tilt Brush, I find it nice but boring.

Brookhaven Experiment is a nice 1 time game to get people excited and scared.

Chair in the room is creepy, slow transitions but has a really well executed ambient.

People tend to like Job Simulator, it's lite and funny.

There are a couple of Vive demos that are also entertaining. In general people seem to like to grab things, throw, move around, feel large or small environments.

On the PSVR:

Battle Zone is my favorite at the moment

Drive Club is very good too but it makes me a little bit nauseous, and I'm not usually a person who gets nausea often.

secure3• 10 years ago

Valve’s The Lab is fantastic and is usually one of the first things I show.

Next up is Job Simulator. Lots of fun and attention to detail in there.

Then Tilt Brush, because it’s surprisingly fun, even for non-artists.

Earth VR probably goes into the list at this position right here :).

The Cubicle (https://steamcommunity.com/app/452490) has a nice twist to it, but is far less polished than the ones I previously listed.

If the person is into shooters and online gaming, definitely Hover Junkers.

ngokevin2• 10 years ago

I've demoed to dozens of people.

1. Job Simulator

2. Tilt Brush

3. Space Pirate Trainer

4. Accounting

5. https://aframe.io/a-painter/ (for WebVR)

saurik4• 10 years ago

No one has yet mentioned Raw Data. Go into the settings, under advanced control settings, and switch the control style to "hold" (which it points out will be more difficult to play using... that isn't the point); I seriously started to feel like I had hands in the world: the user interaction of this game sets a new bar. (I will also mention Fruit Ninja, as many people have played the game on their phone, so getting to play it in VR is more immediately engaging.)

mxfh2• 10 years ago

The globe in Realities is also nice just to interact with. Plus you can experience an Alcatraz prison cell, while still on your own carpet. http://store.steampowered.com/app/452710/

mxfh2• 10 years ago

Unseen Diplomacy was one of my most fun experiences so far. http://store.steampowered.com/app/429830

mahyarm• 10 years ago

I really like 'budget cuts' as a game. It's pretty fun, but only has cartoon levels of violence.

shpx• 10 years ago

This 360 video of a ULA rocket launch is really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03hAiKZDRAk

piyush_soni• 10 years ago

Is it only available on HTC Vive? Can Google Cardboard users experience it?

hbk1966• 10 years ago

It's only on steam so I doubt it. It also relies very heavily on the vive controllers.

teekert• 10 years ago

Yeah, my first though as well, I don't understand this. Earth is a google Product, I think they could be a bit more clear on the page that it only works with completely unrelated Vive. I know 1 person with a Vive while many people have (tried) cardboard.

Blackthorn• 10 years ago

I hope one day they offer an API for it so it can be used as part of a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

ferongr• 10 years ago

Google Earth VR is first available on Steam for the HTC Vive

The lack of a common VR framework, and no expectation from consumers that a VR-enabled application will be cross-compatible between different systems is the main reason I have not yet bought a headset, and advise people asking me against buying. The VR landscape right now looks like it suffers from consolitis, and I will never support such business models.

explodingcamera• 10 years ago

SteamVr / OpenVr is a common VR framework and Google even decided to use it, but they just block all headsets but the vive...

haydenlee5• 10 years ago

Anything that is built on SteamVR is cross-compatible with Oculus Touch, so not sure what your problem is. The only reason they don't market it as such is that Oculus Touch is not publicly available yet. As a current Touch owner I can assure you that every SteamVR app works with Touch today.

Edit: However, ironically Google has put in a software check for HTC Vive and blocks any other headsets. I imagine they'll do a proper Oculus "launch" when Oculus Touch launches.

shostack7• 10 years ago

I wonder about that...I could see it as strategically valuable for Google to have the Vive succeed and the Rift fail.

If the Rift took over somehow (doubtful at this point) FB having control over its ecosystem would be bad news for Google because AR and VR are the future of where digital eyeballs will be.

ngokevin2• 10 years ago

You should check out WebVR (https://mozvr.com) with frameworks such as https://aframe.io/, a VR web framework aiming to allowing to work across all platforms (mobile, desktop, Vive, Rift, etc.). The business model there is as you like, you can publish on your own without anyone taking cuts.

njharman• 10 years ago

That's like expecting ps3 game to work on Xbox.

sintaxi• 10 years ago

...or your monitor, keyboard, & mouse to work with any content.

jliptzin2• 10 years ago

I really think something like this will displace some tourism/sightseeing (at least at the margins). I have done a ton of traveling all over the world and would much prefer a VR experience like this instead of cramming onto an airplane like cattle for hours, getting accused of being a drug lord at every border crossing, dealing with foreigners who seem to hate Americans, etc. Most tourist cities are pretty much the same anyway; a few jam packed attractions, the strip of overpriced fancy tourist trap restaurants, those gift shops you can buy cheap crap with the city's name on it, luxury hotels, adventure charter companies, etc.

Anyway, sorry for the rant but I liken this to going to a football game in the stadium vs. watching at home and I'd much prefer the latter.

haydenlee5• 10 years ago

While it's a fair prediction in the long term, I find apps like these make me want to visit the physical locations even more. Just like seeing photos or videos of a foreign city may spark your intrigue, so does Google Earth VR, at least for me.

zardo3• 10 years ago

Seeing the Sahara on a screen, and climbing a sand dune, are two very different experiences.

6stringmerc2• 10 years ago

Depends on one's imaginative capabilities, honestly. Yes, I'm quite serious. What I've been able to do in dreams (controlled or otherwise) rivals any sand-in-hand experience I could have while waking. I won't claim imagination is a pure replacement for personal experience, but there's something special about abstract thought.

prawn2• 10 years ago

They are, and I've done both. But I think two things will limit the majority of people doing the latter: it's expensive, and some experiences are getting very crowded and even limited by ticket.

Things like The Wave, Half Dome, etc are already on permit/lottery systems. Other places are so crowded that it seriously impacts the experience (parts of the Louvre, the Vatican).

Visiting the Sahara from Morocco requires flights, mixture of land travel including hiring a car or driver, procuring camels and so on. Fine for anyone remotely adventurous, but daunting and expensive for others.

jliptzin2• 10 years ago

That's very true. It's a matter of personal preference, and to me the VR experience seems to be surpassing the point at which a physical journey may not be worth the hassle or the cost.

iambic2• 10 years ago

Cannot wait to try this. Pixel is here, but headset is still coming.

mattl• 10 years ago

This only works on the HTC Vive, not the Daydream.

iambic2• 10 years ago

Realized this after reading more. Bummer.

carlisle_• 10 years ago

I never knew I had a desire to act out a Godzilla fantasy until now.

naavis• 10 years ago

Just tried this with HTC Vive. One of the best VR experiences I've had.

haydenlee5• 10 years ago

It really is incredible. The UI design is amazing too.

johansch2• 10 years ago

Just tried it on my Vive for ten minutes.

So, of course, it's essentially Google Earth ported to VR.

There's some obvious Snowcrash vibes to this. :)

The left hand touch pad is used to switch between perspectives (top or "being a 100 meter tall giant walking around on the land") while the right touch pad is used to zoom in/zoom out.

In places where they have 3d maps (like e.g. SF) it's amazing. I was also blown away by how fast the scenes loaded.. in Google Earth/Maps there is always a lengthy download process. This was almost instant. (I wonder why it was so slow before?)

Walking around in cities as a giant is pretty fascinating. I guess this is why they went with the Vive as their first platform - roomscale VR really kicks as in this particular usecase.

guiomie• 10 years ago

Please bring this to PS4 VR !

canada_dry• 10 years ago

One of the best potential uses for this (and many similar VR apps) is for senior citizens and immobile folks.

Imagine being able to travel back to your hometown or visit places you never got to on your bucket list.

Priceless.

tonyplee• 10 years ago

Add Pokemon VR Go and Google should assimilate half of the humanity into the Matrix.

saurik4• 10 years ago

I wish Earth VR weren't written in so custom of an engine :(... it is severely missing some basic annotation and presentation tools (such as a 3D pencil) which would be comparatively easy to mix in if it used some off-the-shelf engine (such as Unity, which happens to be used by Tilt Brush). It kind of makes sense, though: it really just needs two cameras over the code they already have for Google Earth. It is written in OpenGL (as opposed to Direct3D), so maybe it won't be quite so annoying to throw together something minimal at the rendering layer?...

AustinDev• 10 years ago

Thanks for answering the first question I had after digging through their site. A rendering layer would be fantastic. There are so many cool things that could be easily added to increase immersion or tell a story.

saurik4• 10 years ago

FWIW, I have some initial reason to believe the "tour" mode it has involves the use of KML, so it might be possible to "easily" (still require some crazy hacking, but not so much) tell your own "story", but yeah: what I am really looking for is something where, from inside of VR, I can easily point at stuff and draw things and either take a recording or synchronize my state with another user. Earth VR was just such a great initial example of a place where I wanted to inject these kinds of features, so it is all the more annoying that it is one of the few apps that is built in a way to make that really hard :(.

benjismith• 10 years ago

Awesome.

I'd love to use a VR headset to explore the visualizations at http://cosmicweb.barabasilab.com, and fly around through the superstructure of the universe!

andybak4• 10 years ago

For those without controller (i.e. Using https://github.com/Shockfire/FakeVive to get it working on a Rift) - the tours are defined in text files inside \steamapps\common\EarthVR\assets\content\tours\ with the extension .textpb

Editing the lat/lngs should enable you to visit wherever you choose.

thenomad• 10 years ago

I've just been trying this out. It's absolutely amazing. Awesome in the truest sense of the word.

mtw• 10 years ago

Good tool to use before visiting a place for holidays!

Google Earth VR

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