Holy 3D Cities, Baiduman!

[flwyd]

Google Earth has some pretty cool ways to view buildings in 3D, but like any great technology, after a while it seems ordinary. So it was a big "Whoa" moment when I saw what Baidu, China's largest search engine, is doing with their SimCity-style building layer:

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, Zoom in on Mao's portrait
Shanghai too
Sprawling Guangzhou and the second tallest building in the world, the Canton Tower
Apartment buildings in Shenzhen Even the highway interchanges are 3D.

Comments

[tequiladawn.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! My work PC doesn't allow for chinese script, so i'll have to pull this up at home and find the places I remember visiting (other than the big, easily identifible stuff).

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

It looks like it's only available in a few major cities right now; I got nothing when I tried Chongqing and Chengdu. Even Hong Kong is building-free.