This tutorial explains my workflow of how to get texture-baked 3D models into Google Earth, completely based on open source/free software. There are other ways to do that – maybe less complicated ;) – but this is the way I finally achieved my goals.
I will start with an overview about the workflow, adding more details step by step. The tutorial will grow over time and I can take possible questions into account. That would be a pleasant way for me, because I can start directly and I don´t have to prepare the whole tutorial at once…

Intro 1 : The Software
In the course of this tutorial we will use three different softwares: SketchUp, GIMP and Blender. I’m assuming that you have at least basic knowledge in each of them, because I won´t go too much into details.

SketchUp : Free 3D software provided by Google
SU is the easiest way to prepare 3D models for Google Earth, because it has a direct import/export function for GE. In addition you can upload your geo-located 3D models directly into the 3D Warehouse if you want to share your model inside the GE 3D buildings layer. You can visit the 3d model of St. Mary´s Church in Google Maps (+GE PlugIn) or in the 3DWarehouse

GIMP : Open source Image Manipulation Program
Gimp is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring – we will need it for editing our textures.

Blender : Best open source 3D Software ever :)
Blender is a free open source cross platform suite of tools for 3D creation. We will use it for the texture baking process, because this rendering function is not provided inside SketchUp.

Intro 2 : The Overall Workflow

A short overview about the whole process:

1. Download terrain data from Google Earth into SketchUp
2. Model your 3D building with SketchUp
3. Export your 3D model to Blender
4. Unwrap UVs with Blender
5. Export UV Layout to Gimp
6. Texturing UV map with Gimp
7. Applying UV map in Blender
8. Set Lighting and Environment in Blender
9. Bake Full Render in Blender
10. Export 3D model with baked texture to SketchUp
11. Upload 3D model to Google Earth/3DWarehouse
12. …be proud that you made it through all the mess :)

To be continued…
If anybody knows how to simplify the process, please feel free to comment!

Finally my new official Blender Foundation training DVD “Track, Match, Blend” is shipping! It took a little bit longer than expected, but here it is!

It contains around 10 hours of training for Blender’s Motiontracking module. It covers everything from simple 2D-Tracking, image stabilization and setting up a classic 4-corner-pin-shot to advanced camera- and object-tracking, including face-deformation and marker-removal. Here’s a link to the content page of the DVD: http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/images/TrackMatchBlend_Previewsite/

Watch the trailer! And then buy the DVD! :)

In 2012 the Blender Foundation will create another Open Movie, codename “Mango”. For me this is especially exciting, since I will be part of the team this time, responsible for Motion Tracking.

The focus of Project Mango will be VFX. A lot of development will be done to create a rock solid tracking system, a photorealistic production renderer, a fast and reliable compositor, keying, roto-tools and who knows what else.
It’s an ambitious target, and as always the Blender Foundation is depending on donations.
One way of getting the funds to produce that movie are traditionally the pre-sales. You can purchase the DVD now, and when the movie is ready in September you will receive the movie and all the production files in a nice box of DVDs. It’s only 34,-€, so get yourself and the CG-community a nice christmas present and pre-order the DVD! It will also give you a place in the credits in the film! Eternal glory will be yours! :)
http://mango.blender.org/production/dvd-pre-sale-started-help-us-and-get-a-film-credit/

Even though the web is already being flooded by news about the release of Blender 2.61, I want to report about it here too.

When Blender 2.59 was the final stable version of the Blender 2.5x development, which ported everything from 2.49 to the new 2.5 codebase and mainly gave us a great new UI, a smoother workflow and some great new tools, the 2.6x development is bringing us some awesome new features.
Blender 2.60, which has been released in October, included 3d-Audio, some improvements to the animation system and UI translation and other nice fixes.
One of the greatest releases of Blender ever is this one though.
Blender 2.61 includes production ready camera-tracking, a new physical based GPU realtime render engine, Ocean Simulation and Dynamic Paint, each of them a kickass feature.

Below a few videos that describe what these features do:

Dynamic Paint basically let’s you paint with meshes or particles on other meshes. And not only does it apply color, it also includes a wave-simulation and other ways to do interesting effects.

The Ocean-Simulator is exactly what the name says: It simulates an ocean. It is a pretty straight-forward workflow and performs really well.

Cycles is a totally amazing rendering engine that allows not only physically based Global Illumination, but also live tweaking of the render in the 3d Viewport. It’s an interactive way of setting up your render settings while rendering. Some features are still missing, but it’s a really great start.

For me the biggest and most important feature is the camera-tracking module. Though it is not a one-click solution like you get in Syntheyes, it allows you to get accurate and precise tracks. The fact that it is built right into the 3d-Application makes it a godsend for VFX.
There are already lots of great results on the web, so I’ll just link a short overview of the general workflow here.

Well, it is exciting!

The development of Blender’s matchmoving module keeps on being amazing.
After adding some new algorithms for feature-tracking, which allow to accurately track insane amounts of motion-blur, now we also got object-tracking.
In principle object-tracking is very similar to camera-tracking, it’s just that the movements have to be kinda inverted, so that you don’t have a moving camera, but a moving object. The challenge is to integrate a moving object into a shot with a moving camera. Luckily Sergey Sharybin took this challenge within a week and gave us intuitive and powerful object tracking in Blender.
Below you find one of my first tests with it, and also a link to a tutorial on blendercookie.com.

I was recently invited by Google to an international gathering of 3D artists in Barcelona!

In the three-day conference, the Google Geo Team gave the participants an insight into their work, ventured a forecast on the future development of the arising GeoWeb and unveiled planned enhancements for Geo3D applications. They also talked about about the origins of the idea of developing a 3d-globe like Google Earth (again Neal Stephensons´ mind-blowing sci-fi novel “SnowCrash” (1992) was mentioned – a must-read for every Cybernaut :) ) and what all of this has to with Google´s core business: Online Search…

The central aim of the conference was primarily the exchange among the participants: we presented our latest projects (look at RotorLabs.com ), tips and tricks were explained (I described my workflow how to import texture baked models into SketchUp/Google Earth), networking, discussing ideas with the Google team, and much more. Participants from Europe / Middle East / Africa (EMEA) were invited to take part in the conference, so next to all the nerdy techtalk it was an exciting meeting of cultures! And last not least it took place in one of the most beautiful cities: Barcelona – Basilica Sagrada Familia, Boulevard La Rambla, Barcelona Pavillon by Mies van der Rohe, Plaza Espanya, Olympic Games, FC Barcelona, Mediterranean Sea, beaches, palm trees… it was just great!

This weekend I received mind-blowing and awesome news.
I will work on the Blender Foundation’s next Open Movie, called Project Mango!
That means I will be in Amsterdam the first half of 2012, doing modeling, tracking, animation, compositing and whatever comes along.

Project Mango will be a VFX short movie, shot in Amsterdam. This time the Open Movie will be all SciFi, with giant robots destroying Amsterdam, or whatever crazy idea the director Ian Hubert comes up with. But it will be awesome, as he is the director and vfx-guy of Project London.
The goal of Project Mango is not only to create about 4 minutes of high-quality 4k VFX shots, filmed with a RED (or similar), but also to improve several areas of Blender:
- Matchmoving
- Photorealistic GPU-Rendering
- openCL accelerated and improved compositor

Btw., I already had some fun with Amsterdam:

I’m so excited. Very interesting times ahead.

Here’s a new video of a blender compositing/tracking workflow. The tracker interface has been cleaned up a lot, so it’s even better now.