I'm sure the first of many... here's SHIPS, a (er) ships simulator (maybe not quite a game then) built using Google Earth.
In this ship simulation program you get to be the helmsman of your own
fleet of ships. "Ships" will take you past worlds incredible scenery at
a leisurely pace. All you need to play ships is a small Google Earth
plugin.
Actually they make it very clear that SHIPS is not itself a game, but a proof of concept:
"Ships" is a case study / Technology show piece that demonstrates what
can be achieved with Google Earth. While map data has a tremendous
value for practical purposes, it can also be used as a backdrop for a
range of games.
Cory said to me yesterday, what if you could procedurally generate a 3D game map from a 2D real map, just chuck up some buildings? Which made us wonder, could it be possible to go further, and chuck up actual buildings, maybe using textures from StreetView and similar too?
(via)
could it be possible to go further, and chuck up actual buildings, maybe using textures from StreetView and similar too?
Sure! The place I work at now produces a system that does pretty much exactly this (albeit mostly for mobile mapping, surveying, etc...).
http://www.510systems.com
We have a system that can basically produce a colorized model of a full city with one drive through it. There's an explanation of the system at
http://www.nonpolynomial.com/portfolio/fc2009-point-cloud/
The data for the cloud in that article is also open source, if anyone wants to try actually playing with that kind of data.
Posted by: qDot | May 26, 2009 at 16:56
Have you seen what we're up to at Near?
We're currently focused on social retail applications, but games are on the roadmap...!
Posted by: Alex | May 26, 2009 at 18:17
I would rather be on a real ship, but I am sure my husband will be all over this, hogging the computer for hours, sailing round the world ;-)
Posted by: Gail | May 27, 2009 at 11:06
I'm on a boat! I'm on a boat! Poseidon, look at me!
Posted by: rich | May 28, 2009 at 09:22
I do not know Google earth can be used as game engines, but I do use it to track my cell phone.
Posted by: Google earth tracking | August 02, 2010 at 08:55