Google Earth Model: Convergys Winnipeg

It has been quite a while since I last posted a new Google Earth model, and I actually have several incomplete models lying on my hard drive, so I decided to pick one that was close to being completed and finish it. Here it is:

14 Fultz Boulevard by ahsy Located in the Whyte Ridge... View in Google Earth

So why, you may ask, did I decide to make a model of this building? It's not a particularly unique Winnipeg destination -- as a matter of fact, it's just a generic two-storey private office building in an industrial/commercial area surrounded by suburbs and it is nearly at the edge of the city.

Most obviously, the reason I decided to model this building is because I have worked or am working there (I won't say).

Convergys is one of the top 15 employers in Manitoba. Its primary business is providing call centre and customer support services -- mainly inbound technical support. As such, if you were to survey the population of technically savvy Winnipeggers (such as myself), you would very likely find that a good number of them work or have worked at Convergys at some point. In my opinion, it's an excellent place to work; benefits and wages are fairly good, and it's a great way to get some technical work experience on your resume... provided you have the patience to take calls.

The National Flag of Canada

Time for a little change of pace...

All of the SketchUp models that I have posted so far have been of buildings that are located in Winnipeg, so I decided why not whip up a quickie little SketchUp model that might have some practical use outside of Google Earth (and potentially in it too)? After all, Google's 3D Warehouse is for all types of 3D models, not just models of buildings.

I suppose that when one starts spending a little time looking at and searching for pictures of buildings, you start to notice the presence of ubiquitous objects that exist around many buildings like trees, roadsigns, fences, flagpoles, etc.

So my latest model is none other than a flagpole with the national flag of Canada raised on it. Naturally I decided to do a search in the 3D Warehouse before I started. Not surprisingly, there are quite a number of flagpoles and flags, but none of the Canadian flag yet... that is until now!

National Flag of Canada by ahsy The national flag of Canada... Download to Google SketchUp 6

Feel free to make use of this model and modify it for your own needs. Yes, it is componentized, so you can easily reuse and work with it inside other models.

By the way, this is just in time for Canada's National Flag Day, which is later this month on February 15th. Introduced in 1965, Canada's modern national flag will be 43 years old this year.

Winnipeg Building Model #14

The Winnipeg, Manitoba 3D Warehouse collection seems to be slowly growing to a more respectable size now. I found a few more Winnipeg-located models to add to the collection last night, although they are mainly of the residential variety.

Although these newly added models have apparently been posted in the 3D Warehouse for quite a while already, I didn't catch them earlier because they aren't tagged well enough to be locatable through searching. I only found them by installing the 3D Warehouse Network Link for Google Earth... which I had somehow missed and only discovered yesterday evening.

Anyway, I have decided to release my 14th contribution: the Canadian Grain Commission building. This brings the current tally of models in the Winnipeg, Manitoba collection to 22.

Canadian Grain Commission Building by ahsy This building houses the... View in Google Earth

Although this building is among one of the more distinct and prominent buildings seen on the Winnipeg skyline near Portage & Main, I think a lot of Winnipeggers probably don't know very much about this building (or maybe it's just me?)... it actually took a bit of effort for me to research just the name of the building. My reasoning for this lack of awareness is that because it is a federal government office building, the majority of people probably would not have very much reason to visit this building under normal circumstances.

Addition to Google's North America Collection

Good news... my Winnipeg, Manitoba buildings collection was approved by Google yesterday and has been added into the Cities in Development/North America collection in 3D Warehouse.

New Google Earth Model: St. Boniface Old City Hall

I have just posted another new Google Earth model... the old City Hall of St. Boniface (probably one of my better efforts in comparison to the last five).

Old City Hall of St. Boniface by ahsy The old Saint-Boniface city... View in Google Earth

I always thought this building was pretty neat... especially the clock tower. The whole building has a certain character & charm about it, although I have probably only ever been in it a few times.

On a somewhat related note, I noticed that there currently seems to be something wacky happening with the Google 3D Warehouse website... about 4 of the models in my Winnipeg collection are not showing up. The collection search result says there are 19 models in total in the collection, but once you click to view the list of models in the collection, only 15 appear. The missing models include three of my own (Canwest Global Place, the Chinatown gate, and the Scotiabank building), as well as one other model contributed by somebody else (I believe it's the rough model of the new Manitoba Hydro building). The models are still online, and you can access then via the links I provided in my previous blog posts below, but you just can't search for them or see them listed in the Winnipeg collection. I suspect this is probably just a temporary issue though.

[Update 2008-01-19 23:45 CT: My suspicions were correct; said problem with 3D Warehouse seems to be resolved now.]

Five More Google Earth Models

I decided to release 5 more new building models for Google Earth last night. Although they are not really finished or could still use much more work, I figured that I may as well put them out there... perhaps somebody else would be able to take and improve them eventually.

Additionally, since these buildings are arguably some of the most prominent and defining buildings in Winnipeg, having them publicly available in Google Earth sooner is probably better.

The only model of these five that was built from scratch is the Royal Canadian Mint model. The other four models that comprise the Winnipeg Square complex were actually taken from another existing model of the whole Winnipeg downtown area that two other people had contributed. I only made some minor modifications and broke them up into separate buildings for a few reasons:

• Although the models of the entire downtown area are very nice, they lack a lot of detail and probably cover too large of an area (and uses too much bandwidth) for Google to consider putting it into Google Earth.
• Makes it easier to work with and modify individual building models for myself and others -- making a change to one building wouldn't have to require uploading all the buildings together again.
• Separated models would probably load faster in Google Earth, since they can be downloaded individually and possibly concurrently. If the KMZ file is too large, it may take forever for one huge model to appear.
• It ups the count of building models in Winnipeg ;-)
  

Here they are... enjoy!

Royal Canadian Mint by ahsy The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM,... View in Google Earth

Scotiabank Building by ahsy The Scotiabank Building is... View in Google Earth

Royal Bank Building by ahsy Built in 1965, the Royal Bank... View in Google Earth

Winnipeg Square by ahsy The Shops of Winnipeg Square... View in Google Earth

Commodity Exchange Tower by ahsy Completed in 1979, the... View in Google Earth

Winnipeg in 3D

One of the things that I have recently been dabbling with a bit is building 3D models using Google's SketchUp software. Other than making it fun and very easy to build 3D models, one aspect that I really like is the ability for anybody to be able to contribute geographically-located models of real buildings into Google Earth.

Obviously, exploring your own home city/town/village is something that a lot of people who use Google Earth or Maps do, and being able to explore 3D models of buildings that you may or may not be familiar with only makes the experience that much more cooler.

Google Earth's 3D buildings layer only had two models for Winnipeg though, and since Winnipeg is a medium-sized city (pop. ~800,000), I really didn't expect very much. Searching Google's 3D Warehouse for more Winnipeg-related 3D models also didn't locate very many results... there were several good models, however they were either not geographically placed, or too broad and not detailed enough, or too simple, and of no real public significance (i.e. private residences). There wasn't even a Winnipeg collection under the "Cities in development" collection (which is Google's official collection of 3D model collections), whereas collections exist for some smaller Canadian cities & towns. I would presume that 3D models belonging to any "official" collections would have a significantly increased chance of being placed into Google Earth's 3D Buildings layer.

It might be naïve to think that an indicator of a city's importance or skilled population is somehow correlated to the number of 3D models available for it in Google Earth, but I figure that for a city the size of Winnipeg, there have got to be some people out there who would volunteer to contribute... from the standpoint of potentially increasing worldwide exposure and interest in a modest city like Winnipeg, I figured that I might as well be one to do so, even if it's just something that I can only do in my spare time. The way I look at it, it could be considered a leisure activity like playing video games, only you end up producing things that are interesting, useful, contributes to the collective knowledge of humankind, and you learn a potentially useful skill like 3D modelling in process.

All that being said, here is my collection;

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
by ahsy
A collection of model structures located in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and its environs.

Here are some of the models that I have created so far:

Canwest Global Place by ahsy CanWest Global Place is an... View in Google Earth

270 Sherbrook St Winnipeg MB by ahsy An improved model of a... View in Google Earth

Upper Fort Garry Gate by ahsy Fort Garry also known as... View in Google Earth

Winnipeg Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge by ahsy An improved and geo-located... View in Google Earth

Winnipeg Chinatown Gate by ahsy Winnipeg's Chinatown gate... View in Google Earth

Winnipeg Chinese Cultural and Community Centre by ahsy The Winnipeg Chinatown... View in Google Earth

I will be submitting my Winnipeg collection to Google once there are a few more "high quality" building models added, and I think the collection meets the all of the qualifications that are necessary for inclusion. Hopefully we will soon be seeing more of this beautiful city in Google Earth for people from all over the world to explore and enjoy.