If this helps you save time or money for your job, please condier supporting the work involved in here ;)

News (from Feb 17, 2020) A new version is available that should make the whole process easier and work on more hardware. It now uses the last version of RenderDoc (1.6), the last version of Chrome (80) and the last version of Blender (2.82). This is quite a change and if you notice any regression (like it used to work and now it does not) please report!

Maps Models Importer

Maps Models Importer is a set of tools for importint 3D models from wide maps in 3D content softwares. This is a proof of concept containing only a Blender add-on for importing 3D models from Google Maps.

The blender directory contains the source code of the Blender add-on importing captures recorded with RenderDoc:

Installation

Download a release or make a zip of blender/MapsModelsImporter/. In Blender 2.82, go to Edit > Preferences, Add-on, Install, then browse to the zip file.

/!\ Do not use the "Download as zip" button of GitHub, make sure you use a release zip instead.

Install RenderDoc version 1.6.

NB: If you are using an older release (v0.1.x and before), you must use the portable version of RenderDoc 1.2 or RenderDoc 1.1. This is no longer the case since v0.2.0 of this add-on.

Usage

You can follow instruction from the walkthrough video: https://youtu.be/X6Q7dbtXVZQ Alternatively, check out the following steps:

Start RenderDoc, and File > Inject into process;
Start terminal (Win+R, "cmd") and run (adapt the second line to the location of your Chrome installation):

set RENDERDOC_HOOK_EGL=0
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-gpu-sandbox --gpu-startup-dialog

Do NOT press Ok on the dialog box yet;
In RenderDoc, search for the chrome process and inject into it;
Press OK in the chrome dialog;
Go to Google Maps (not Google Earth!) in satellite view, and take a capture using Print Screen while moving in the viewport;
In RenderDoc, save the capture as an rdc file
In Blender, go to File > Import > Google Maps Capture an choose your capture file.

For step 2. you can create a link to Chrome rather than usig the cmd, and put as target (again, adapt the path to chrome.exe to your installation):

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "SET RENDERDOC_HOOK_EGL=0 && START "" ^"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe^" --disable-gpu-sandbox --gpu-startup-dialog"

Troubleshooting

Useful information can be found in the comment of the video, as well as on the support thread on blenderartists.

Linux

Unfortunately, the inject into process functionality of RenderDoc is not supported on linux. You can still import existing captures on linux, though.

Missing blocks

By default, the addon limits to 200 blocks, but if you feel ready to let your Blender hang for a moment, you can increase it.

Blender does not want to install the add-on

Do NOT use the green "Clone or download" button of GitHub. I know it's tempting, but I cannot hide it, it's a GitHub feature. To get the proper zip, go to the release page.

I don't want to uninstall Google Chrome...

Since version v0.2.0 of this add-on, it is no longer needed to install an old version of Chrome.

With older versions (depreciated) of this add-on, you have to use a specific version of Chrome. Check this trick out to install it alongside your current version: eliemichel#15

There is no option for 3D in Google Maps

Try appending ?force=webgl at the end of the google maps URL. Also, check that you enabled the Globe mode (an extra button on the right-hand side once you are in satellite mode).

API: OpenGL (Not Presenting)

This was a common issue with versions of this add-on prior to v0.2.0. Update to the latest version of this add-on, then make sure you remove the --use-angle=gl option from the chrome shortcut.

Chrome is showing a warning about an unsupported feature

If chrome says something like "Unsupported command line, security will suffer", don't mind. This is due to the --disable-gpu-sandbox flag, but it is just a warning, it should not be a problem for what we are doing.

Chrome window is all plain black

Try to set and unset the fullscreen mode using F11.

There is no GPU pop-up

Make sure you use the right custom shortcut to start chrome and that you closed any process chrome process before starting.

PrintScr does not actually take a capture

It happens sometimes, in this case you can use the "Capture after delay" button in RenderDoc to trigger a capture. Don't forget to make sure to move in the 3D viewport at the very time the capture occurs.

How to increase the level of detail?

If you want better quality captures, you should know that Google Maps loads LoDs (Levels of Details) in relation with the window size of your web browser. There is several way to increase it:

You can increase your screen resolution. Also note that nvidia allows now to increase the rendering resolution of your screen to 4k even with a simple full HD screen.
You can also use the rendering size percentage in Google Chrome. Most browsers do offer the option to zoom in or out the web pages (typically using Ctrl+Mouse Wheel) to adapt them to your screen resolution. By setting the zoom at e.g. 25% in Google Chrome, you increase the level of detail loaded by Google Maps.

But while doing so you also increase dramatically the number of block. Be aware of the fact that by default the MapsModelsImporter add-on limits to 200 blocks to prevent from freezing for too long. You can change this number on import.

It's taking too long, how to automate this process?

Although I don't know how to automate the capture itself, you can easily automate the importing part, see this issue for an example of automation script.

Disclaimer

This is a proof of concept showcasing how the 3D render process of Google Maps can be inspected. This is intended for educational purpose only. For a more in-depth analysis, see Importing Actual 3D Models From Google Maps.

Do not use this for any commercial nor redistribution purpose. Actually, the use of such tool might be allowed for private read-only use, as this is what happens when browsing Google Maps, but not beyond. I do not take responsibility for any use of this tool.

Help Wanted

This repository does not provide the required RenderDoc binaries for linux nor for OSX. If you have such a system, build RenderDoc against Python 3.7.4 (the minor version matters) to be compatible with the version of Blender's Python distribution.

knut0815 / mapsmodelsimporter Goto Github PK