Introducing Google Building Maker | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Google Building Maker

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134 pointsfogus46 comments

Sounds like simple crowd sourcing. But please note what they are really doing.

They are providing an ideal training set for training machine learning algorithms to automatically extract 3D models from aerial photos.

Yes, so they can replace the crowd with bots.

Edit: spelling.

Yeah. This is a bit ridiculous, conning people into working for them for free at this project by calling it a game. What is up next - the "improve my search algorithm" game?

I wouldn't be surprised if they already have something in the pipe, seeing as how they already have this:

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

They also have been using 1-800-GOOG-411 to train their voice recognition engines (like Voice Search in Android)

I think it's win-win. Google gets data and somebody somewhere is happy to be doing something more productive than FarmVille or some other wacky Facebook game people like you and I avoid like the plauge. Hell, I'd pit building makers against each other by having leaderboards of number of buildings, average building rating on a 5-star scale, etc.

Outsourcing research isn't that crazy: http://www.netflixprize.com/

>What is up next - the "improve my search algorithm" game?

http://www.netflixprize.com/

It's a bit unfair to call it a con. You can choose to try it or not. Likewise you can enjoy doing it or not.

It actually is pretty fascinating. I sat down to test it and ended up modeling four buildings in my downtown area. ;)

It works quite well and it is actually rather nice to see the building go up. It will be even nicer if I get to see them included in Google Earth. We'll see.....

At any rate what I am saying is that I don't mind working for them for free.

Why not, worked for the image service .. I played a few times it was kinda fun in a waste-a-few-minutes way. Pretty good vocab tester, think of different ways to describe a scene, think of ways that your "opponent" is likely to use, think of the most complex way that is still likely enough (more points).

It works both ways... why do you think Google offers free 411 service?

(hint: voicemail transcription)

It's true, but since everybody has access to the test images (so they can label them), and the models (through google earth), it seems like anybody can train whatever algorithm they want on the same set.

I think it's forbidden. Check the terms of use for Google Earth imagery and models.

Depending on how much us humans contribute, there might not be much left for the bots.

The problem that they want to solve is: "How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it's accurate, that it stays current and that it's useful to everyone who might want to use it?"

I think "stays current" is an important part of the question. Over a period of many years, buildings in an area are taken down and new ones are built.

Maybe Google will have an enthusiastic mass of people contributing to this project, and end up with good models of most of the buildings out there right now... but in ten years, are people still going to be doing this for them? I think mooneater's suggestion makes sense if you look at growing this into something big and robust in the long term.

Yes, keeping the model up to date is definitely an important issue. Don't forget that this also involves capturing new aerial imagery periodically.

Another approach that may have more potential than automatically extracting 3D structure from aerial imagery is using aerial depth maps from something like LIDAR. There's a research group at USC doing this, and you can see a video describing the process here:

http://graphics.usc.edu/~qianyizh/miscs/cvpr09_streaming_ful...

And here's another video from USC that just shows textured 3D models a few cities, captured using LIDAR and aerial imagery:

http://graphics.usc.edu/~luwang/videos/cvpr.avi

If I understand this right, they are essentially crowdsourcing the addition of 3D models to Google Earth, no?

If so, that's a really great idea on how to get high-quality work done for lots and lots of cities, for almost free...

I think they are.

I havn't explored this yet but from what I've seen there is no competition or extra bonus for modeling a building. I think it could be really successful if it was turned into some sort of game.

There are a lot of people who really enjoy this sort of thing. For example, there are online forums for skyscraper enthusiasts that attract pretty big audiences. I think given the interest out there, it will be successful regardless, for much the same reasons that some people enjoy woodworking as a hobby.

Some way to publicize one's work -- to get more recognition for it -- would certainly make it even more successful though.

The models you create will be in their 3d warehouse and are keyed to your Google account. So if you're an awesome modeler, unlike me, and/or you live somewhere people want to look at buildings, then your model will rack up downloads among sketchup users.

Incidentally, to make this work the coverage areas seem to have multiple aerial views, not unlike the maps on MS Live (or Bing maps or whatever it is now). Seems as if Google has quietly taken up doing streetview-air.

See the works of Luis von Ahn (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/), specifically his GWAP project (http://www.gwap.com/gwap/). He has created several web games that provide training for machine learning algorithms while at the same time entertaining users and brining them back for more. The games are very successful, and from the talk of his I heard, it sounds like the data is proving useful.

When trying to register at GWAP only a stacktrace of an exception was shown.

"Building Maker is not available for Linux/mobile devices."

All you need is Windows or Mac and to be online.

EDIT: Apparently Firefox or IE too.

Or Chrome ;)

Yeah I'm disappointed and too lazy to open up VirtualBox. Building Maker is probably better off anyway without my contributions.

Who owns the data generated by crowdsourcing modelling? This data needs to be open rather than owned by a single company. I hope its open. Any info on this?

Awesome. At the same time, it's yet another Google project which is just so massive in scope and resources that no one else will want to compete.

I'm in this exact space and there are plenty of people competing. Nokia and Microsoft to name a few.

In mapping or in building 3d models of real world buildings?

Building 3d models is becoming a necessary feature on modern maps. In fact Microsoft Virtual Earth had 3d models a long time before google did - though is stupidly only works on explorer. There are many players in this arena. I submitted this a few weeks ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=800705

Some companies are actually setting up click-shops in 3rd world countries to get them to create the models.

All that said I don't believe that 3d models are a killer feature for maps b/c they don't help you very much in day to day decisions. But make no mistake, there are a number of companies who are spending billions of dollars on large scale mapping operations that will give us incredibly rich information.

Personally I believe that the map will become the interface to most data we consume. We exist in the world, and the map will be our link to it's underlying data. I believe the geo-browser will one day trump the web browser. Or the web browser will become a geo-browser.

Another player, founded by a former classmate of mine that got acquired by AutoDesk: http://www.3dgeo.de/

There is competition, as noted above, plus you might find this interesting (requires a plugin, but worth it) http://www.c3technologies.com/en_demo.php

Maybe I'm a little slow, but I finally see where they were going with the Sketchup acquisition.

Maybe this is relevant?

This is the organization that created AutoModeling- http://www.acvt.com.au/research/videotrace/

This firm is working with it- http://punchcard.com.au/wordpress/

I tried to run photos from google street view tokyo through insight3d but they weren't high rez enough http://insight3d.sourceforge.net/

No Snow Leopard support, plus a bad error message that fails to communicate that.

Google owes me 180 seconds of my life back, well I guess they've saved me more than that, we'll call it even.

Works in Firefox on Snow Leopard, but not Safari.

I get stuff from Google for free, why not let them get something back?

How come Nordic cities like Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki is so well built already, but not Stockholm and Swedish cities?

If it really is "more like a game than a tool," then perhaps they should add a point system.

I think implicit rewards are better than explicit rewards in this abstract non-linear system.

great. now google wants to employ us for free. we do all the work and they have a nice database of 3d building in earth.

Well, we get to use this nice database too. Except my house is just outside their current coverage area :-/ But if you want a feel for how impressive it can be, try roving around, say, downtown San Francisco.

Is there are startups to help the millions of small and medium size private hotels around the world to appear on the map? =))

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