
The Globe in 3D - uptown
http://www.vricon.com/home/
======
3princip
It's a shame all three suggested use-cases are military. Surely there must me
some more noble use for such technology, in theory at least.

Otherwise, I've noticed Google Maps has had a really nice 3D-view of some
cities for a while now, better looking than the sample video here. Although
the terrain modeling in this product looks pretty cool.

~~~
Bedon292
There are plenty of other uses for this technology, however I believe it is
cost prohibitive at the moment. Satellite imagery is not cheap, and you need
multiple images for the entire area you are interested in. Then it takes
massive computing power to extract geographically accurate 3d from 2d images.

Google has 3d of some cities, but I believe they are hand modeled, and would
take a very long time to do in new areas. It is possible they use LIDAR to do
the 3d as well, but that would require flying low over an area to collect the
data which can also be cost prohibitive, and dangerous. I have yet to see
anything on Google Maps that looks anywhere near the quality of the sample
video. Totally possible I have missed it though, do you have a link to
somewhere?

~~~
3princip
For example:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5032338,-0.1282209,513a,20y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5032338,-0.1282209,513a,20y,41.61t/data=!3m1!1e3)

Using Chrome and Earth view (and WebGL I think). This doesn't seem to have
been done "by hand", looks to be algorithmic.

~~~
Bedon292
Thanks. That definitely looks better than the previous 3d I have seen, though
I am not sure it looks better than the Vricon stuff. They are definitely
comparable at least.

The textures are definitely algorithmic on Google Maps, but this page leads me
to believe the models are not necessarily:
[https://maps.google.com/help/maps/mapcontent/citiesin3d/](https://maps.google.com/help/maps/mapcontent/citiesin3d/)
They are asking for places to submit their models to be included. While I
suppose this could be done arithmetically, it does not seem like Google is
doing it themselves.

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plg
"WHAT IS THE PRICE FOR YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? Vricon offers competitive
pricing"

oh... competitive pricing. Well I feel better. Thanks for letting me know.

~~~
hvs
It's targeted towards the military, so the price is "as much as we can get."

~~~
ryanmarsh
More like "commensurate with the agony of your procurement process".

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forrestthewoods
Best way to get me to not watch your video is to take away the controls and my
ability to skip around at my leisure. Urgh.

~~~
quadrature
Also it did an extremely poor job of explaining what the product is and what
features are offered.

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filleokus
I believe this is somehow connected with the data Apple uses in their Maps
application. Apple bought C3, at the time a division of SAAB, back in 2011.
Seems strange that SAAB now is back in (almost) the same kind of business as
what they sold of to Apple. [http://jalopnik.com/5879255/how-apple-bought-
saabs-futuristi...](http://jalopnik.com/5879255/how-apple-bought-saabs-
futuristic-mapping-software)

~~~
johansch
Apple probably only bought the rights to use the tech in civilian
applications.

~~~
sorenjan
That's exactly it.

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mangeletti
Firstly, this is amazing.

Secondly, the music playing in the main splash video is a bit chiptune, and
it's pretty awesome. Does anybody know who/what that is?

~~~
ep103
seconding the song request!

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Trombone12
If I go to the root of the site[1] I get an error message about a bad database
connection.

[1] [http://www.vricon.com/](http://www.vricon.com/)

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wodenokoto
"Vricon Inc. is a U.S. company providing high-quality services and products to
meet our customers’ needs"

Maybe they should work on that description.

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fsloth
Does anyone have any detailed data on the cost structure of their offering.
Or, ordering detailed satellite images for that matter?

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Udik
On a somewhat unrelated note, this

[http://alturl.com/qr2n3](http://alturl.com/qr2n3)

and this [http://alturl.com/coph3](http://alturl.com/coph3)

are "decision ready" maps of the towns (Reston, Virginia and Linkoping,
Sweden) where the company is located. Both might be useful to "special forces"
for "decision support" and, who knows, "air operations".

~~~
carussell
Those link to

[https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9556685,-77.3727741,5091m/da...](https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9556685,-77.3727741,5091m/data=!3m1!1e3)

[https://www.google.com/maps/@58.4080516,15.6156912,1715m/dat...](https://www.google.com/maps/@58.4080516,15.6156912,1715m/data=!3m1!1e3)

(For anyone who despises the use of URL shorteners here as much as I do.)

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Frozenlock
"Decision ready"

Wait, does that mean something?

~~~
sp332
It means you can trust it to be good enough to make decisions based on the
data, instead of needing to double-check with another source of information.

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Kiro
Didn't Google Maps have something like this before? I can't seem to find it.

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sagivo
I saw similar things in the Israeli Army 10 years ago, but still looks nice.

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thomasfl
The video says this made by Swedish car producer Saab. The went bankcrupt two
years ago. So is this abandonware?

~~~
thecopy
SAAB designs and manufactures different defence products and fighter jets. For
example, the JAS Gripen:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen)

~~~
gao8a
They also made the awesome Carl G:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_recoilless_rifle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_recoilless_rifle)

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kmfrk
Whatever Vimeo video was there before is "private" now.

~~~
ctdonath
Playing fine for me.

~~~
kmfrk
Ah, must be my privacy blocker.

