Archives for January 19, 2009

3D PDFs… there’s no question that PDF is a standard format for sharing digital media. Well, why stop at simple 2D PDFs of your work, particularly when PDF supports geospatial functionality and even 3D! An announcement slipped by last week from DigitalGlobe that you may have missed and I encourage you to revisit it – 3D world imagery models courtesy of a partnership between DigitalGlobe and Aegis. Imagine this, now you can explore any point in the World in rich, 3D via the marriage of data and innovations provided by these two companies. Indeed, impress results are seen when you mashup data and services to create a compelling new product! (NBC and The Today Show are amongst the first customers to have already used ImageScape)

ImageScape has the power to generate 3D virtual terrain models of the world’s land mass by integrating high-precision, accurate satellite and aerial imagery and Digital Elevation Models (DEM) with a flexible, lightweight viewer which creates media-broadcast quality terrain models. Using 3D wireframe terrain topologies and high-resolution commercial imagery from DigitalGlobe’s Image Library and satellite constellation, ImageScape users will be able to fly through virtual representations of desired locations at a full 1:1 resolution.

A visit to the company’s website provides users with access to some really cool, demo data products from China. Using PDF you can view the Forbidden City or the Beijing Institute of Tech Gym in 3D where you can rotate, zoom, spin and manipulate the views in a simple yet fast UI – all in PDF. These data are also served up for viewing with Google Earth as a KMZ dataset – see more at http://www.digitalglobe-aegistg.com