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Comment by nachteilig | Hacker News Reader

The tilted 3D view has the same sort of skewing that Apple's new maps app has. Anyone know what it might be about the algorithms that make them do that?

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Both are using C3's data. C3 is a company that provided 3D data to NOKIA for the first version of 3D maps released two years ago and NOKIA made a terrible mistake to allow Apple to buy it and use C3's 3D data for their own maps. The mesh simplification algorithm used is based on edge collapses according to an error threshold, hence the strange skewing.

Disclaimer: I worked for NOKIA L&C on 3D + cloud + navigation.

btw, hitta.se used the same(similar?) technology many years ago, but it required java or maybe even some proprietary plugin to be used. Don't know why it's gone now as it worked pretty good, and it had 3d coverage of cities that neither apple nor nokia has now :/

Do you know if apple and nokia bought exclusive rights, or why would hitta suddenly drop the feature?

Yes, hitta.se used C3 (Java IIRC). I believe it was their pilot project as both companies are from Sweden (possibly with government/universities involvement) and they used airplane stereovision to generate 3D, which would explain fantastic detail of the whole Sweden (I remember looking at the funny rotated skyscraper in Malmo). To be honest, I don't know why did hitta.se drop its 3D maps. I was playing with hitta.se before NOKIA bought the technology from C3 and there were internal rumors that C3 will be acquired. I would assume licensing costs were the main culprit; given the use of airplane flyovers, the data extraction was very expensive.

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