As cool as the Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D city models are, they just got even cooler!

The Virtual Earth 3D integration team has been hard at work enhancing the Virtual Earth 3D environment to improve accuracy, resolution and detail of 3D city models as well as overall realism for a more immersive search and simulation experience. As a milestone of these efforts, Microsoft today published 4 city models to the Live Search Maps site that feature more buildings, improved building textures, more detailed terrain features, and 3D trees.  This enhanced 3D map detail will soon roll out to the more than 250 cities where 3D models are currently available, beginning with the 20 major metro areas in the USA and Europe. The city models launched today are Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

A new engineering process allows for 100% automated modeling of structures and trees. In the case of these first 4 enhanced cities, previously existing structures were reused and resurfaced with enhanced texturing. And where the former modeling technique was theoretically limited to buildings of at least 3-4 stories in height, the new process also allows for the detection and modeling of smaller buildings resulting in much denser city models: roughly 10x or 1000% more! To quantify this, the average city model in Virtual Earth was formerly made up of between 4K to 8K structures compared to a range now of between 60K to roughly 130K structures. Phoenix, specifically, has 130K buildings and Denver, with a previous count of 5000 models, will be equally as dense once reprocessed with different parameters. This doesn't even include trees. The new Denver city model has on the order of 300K trees!

Hold onto your pocket protectors all you byteheads ... despite this vegetation volume, the trees do not impact load time. The reason is that, as opposed to modeling each tree in a city location, the program uses a library and only has to load a given tree type once and then calculates size for each instance. So while the type of the tree planted in these newly enhanced cities is just characteristic for the region, the location, height and diameter for each tree is accurate.

To illustrate the enhancements to the new models, here are some "before and after" screenshots I captured over those locations. One additional improvement you will note is better color and contrast thanks to a new color balancing technique that takes better advantage of the full dynamic range of the UltraCamX large format digital aerial camera used to capture the aerial imagery from which the 3D models are derived. (See previous blog entry.)

BEFORE: Dallas, Texas

AFTER: Dallas, Texas.  WOW! Look at the detail in the buildings and note the realism in the reflective surfaces. Overall color balance and contrast is greatly enhanced allowing for more clarity of details.

 BEFORE: Denver, Colorado

AFTER: Denver, Colorado.  In addition to looking more sculpted, the trees surrounding the State Capitol building lend a more realistic appearance to the location.

Another Denver "AFTER" shot just to share a view of trees from ground level.

BEFORE: Las Vegas, Nevada

AFTER: Las Vegas, Nevada.  We're THERE! I feel myself losing my hard earned dollars just LOOKING at this image!

Here is another "AFTER" in Vegas ... the Riviera at (almost) garden level. Love the realism afforded by the trees with shadows casting on the pools, and the reflective glass building surfaces. If this doesn't make you want to vacation here, a brochure sure won't!

BEFORE: Phoenix, Arizona

AFTER: Phoenix, Arizona. I think I can even see the heat rising off the pavement ... in the reflection of the glass surface of the Chase building!

How exciting is this?! If the Virtual Earth 3D world gets anymore realistic, I may never make it out my front door again!

Remember that you can route in 3D just as well as in 2D for a virtual drive of point-to-point directions. Happy 3D travels!