3D cities from Edushi.com
So I was browsing the 'net for some interesting things to look at. News, the election in the US, and of course, Formula 1 results. Nothing though, beats what I found at Edushi. This site amazed me upon first clicking on the link. I think you'll understand why...
This is a 3D rendering of the Hong Kong Harbour. Exact to the very last detail. And I thought google earth was cool? Well, when you've seen this, google earth is nothing! I've been to Hong Kong and I can attest to the accuracy of the buildings. Even the shapes and colours of each building is rendered to almost perfect accuracy. The Docks aren't even the same. To any casual observer, you could make all the docks the same shape and no one would care. But at Edushi, each dock is different, rendered exactly like the real thing. To just think about the man-hours that went into this is enormous! I had a hard time in Sim City creating a couple buildings and these guys just blew that entirely out of the water and detailed every single building.
You'd think that they would stop at perfecting Hong Kong but no, they've gone on to model almost every Major city in China. From Shanghai, to Beijing, to Xi'an. Every block, every building, every road is exact in dimensions, shape, and colour.
I have relatives in Beijing and I've stayed at their apartment. Not only could I find thieir apartment, but the number of floors is the same too! Like seriously, who would have the time to put something like this together? For sure you can't just satellite images to draw things because it wouldn't give any sense of depth. This is all done by man...every building painstakingly rendered. I am sure that Google Earth was integral in the creation though, if google found out about this site, I am sure they would want to integrate it.
I tip my hat off to the certainly large community of developers, and given the large chinese population, I am sure they could start modelling cities outside of China. I'd love to see them tackle Tokyo!
