Tutorial – How to extract Google Maps meshes and import into Blender/Rhino/UE5 for reference (2024)

Imagery ©2024 Google, Imagery ©2024 CNES / Airbus, Lantmäteriet/Metria, Maxar Technologies, Map data ©2024

Timestamps:
0:08 [Intro] Introduction to tutorial
0:28 [Intro] Software requirements and installation of MapsModelsImporter and RenderDoc
2:54 [RenderDoc] Setting up
3:37 [Google Chrome] Opening a browser window with custom arguments, and injecting with RenderDoc
4:32 [Google Maps] Manipulating the LOD levels with the browser zoom level
6:15 [RenderDoc] Capturing a frame
6:49 [RenderDoc] Saving the capture and releasing the injection
7:07 [Blender] Importing the extracted meshes
8:08 [Blender] Simplifying the imported entities (joining objects and merging vertices by proximity)
11:05 [Blender] Applying transform data, making a duplicate and removing all material slots with a script
14:08 [Blender] Filling significant holes in the mesh manually
15:54 [MeshLab] Downloading and installing MeshLab for an efficient unwrapping process
17:04 [Blender] Exporting the mesh
17:30 [MeshLab] Unwrapping and exporting in MeshLab
19:25 [Blender] Importing the mesh, organizing and applying transform matrix
20:25 [Blender] Verifying the unwrapped faces
21:15 [Blender] Baking a projected texture
24:32 [Blender] If relevant, computing the bake process with the help of a discrete GPU will lower baking times
25:12 [Blender] Visually verifying the bake result, and saving the baked texture
26:57 [Blender] Exporting the mesh (again, now with UV coordinates)
27:33 [Rhino] Visualizing the mesh in Rhino
29:29 [Unreal Engine] Creating a new project in Unreal Engine
30:46 [Unreal Engine] Importing the mesh
32:28 [Unreal Engine] Creating a material and importing the baked texture
34:54 [Unreal Engine] Adding Ultra Dynamic Sky
37:42 [Unreal Engine] Adding a CineCamera actor
39:44 [Unreal Engine] Adding a Level Sequence
45:57 [Unreal Engine] Adding Depth of Field by adjusting the camera's aperture and focal point
50:09 [Unreal Engine] Activating Movie Render Queue and test rendering one frame
55:10 [Unreal Engine] Final rendering
57:11 [Unreal Engine] Resulting animation

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Links to free software:

Links to paid software:

Link to previous tutorial (covering pitfalls and backtrackings):

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Copy and paste these two lines into a command prompt and execute to start Chrome in injection-compatible mode – if you intend to use the 32-bit Chrome application instead of the 64-bit one, change 'Program Files\' to 'Program Files (x86)\':

set RENDERDOC_HOOK_EGL=0

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Python script to remove all material slots for selected object(s) in Blender:
"""(Copy and paste the below script in full, from and including the first line, to and including the final line, and press ENTER twice after pasting.)"""
import bpy

"""(End of script.)"""

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Note:
The extrusion amount, set to 1 mm in the tutorial, was unnecessarily generous; 0.2 mm might have been a better value.

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This tutorial demonstrates to KTH Architecture students how to extract photogrammetry meshes from Google Maps – for reference – and import it in Blender, Rhino, Unreal Engine 5.

The operating system used for this tutorial is Windows 10. Running another operating system (e.g. Linux, MacOS) might amount to a different user experience or software incompatibility.

To check in which computer room(s) any relevant software might be installed in – CADLAB, DFL, and ARCPLAN are in the KTH School of Architecture building – please check the following link for current status:

Disclaimer:
This tutorial aims to increase student awareness of the versatility of the digital tools available for use within the context of the architectural education offered by KTH. As such, it might not be generally applicable, but on the other hand, if at least one architecture student is helped by it in fulfilling deliverables requirements, the purpose of this tutorial is satisfactorily achieved. There might be inaccuracies in this tutorial video – if you identify any significant one, please tell us in the comments.

[fabaogc]

I had a similar experience, crashing when using Parameterization > Trivial Per triangle. The crash went away if I first used "Remove Zero Area Faces".

[weeliano]

There's a better way to remove the materials at 13:40, there's a addon called Material utilities in Blender that can be turned on, then right click on the object and choose "Material Utilities" then followed by "Clean Slots" and "Remove All Material Slots". Great video BTW!!!

[simuu.]

Right on time, just saw your first tutorial to this and now the updated version is here. Again, a very nice tutorial!

Dude!, to me it was a very very useful video! even better than the Blender add-on creator's tutorial! You have now a new subscriber here. Thanks for sharing

[johnline]

thanks for spending the time on this, i've been looking for ways to optimise this workflow without having 3000 materials and objects

[nicolasvtc]

The [CTRL-] shortcut to get the best details in google maps was what I was looking for. Thank you very much !

[bye_bye_google]

Thanx, mates!
I just tried the first one failed.
Was desperate.
And luckily saw you have a fresh vid.
Trying it now

[Cheminglin]

Incredible work, mate! I learned so much from this video. Also, Is there a difference between your method and the "Blosm" plugin in terms of obtaining Google Earth geometries in blender and converting them to the Rhino platform?

[ClydeJacobsen]

Thank you so much for taking the time to put this tutorial together! Anyone else having issues baking the texture out? Tried with and without CUDA, model stays stubbornly black. increased the cage size and margin size...still no dice. Any advice please?

[cristianmaticiuc]

Hello, thx for this amazing tutorial! I have a problem when i use cmd prompt to open the google page the box doesn't appear. Any suggestions?

[NPCLiam]

Meshlab is crashing when running the Trivial Per Triangle filter. I've also ran Remove zero Area Faces and it's still crashing. Any ideas on a solution? Fantastic tutorial though! This is massive help.

[mahdiyarmozaffarjalali]

Not working every time adding pid, it change and make a new one

[kris]

When I inject the pid and confirm an other one pop up, and so on.

[zoronoro]

When i wanr to inject after that i click ok on the another tap but it show anothet number and it will not work!

[Chakotay]

possible to seperate buildings from terain?

[netron]

is there a way to batch do it for a large area?

[Josh-dudx]

Hi I am desperate, what do you do if Vulkan not transmitting error comes up

[jonathanramirez]

Hi am having an error in blender 3.6:
about the invalid capture file. I used your procedure.

[danielode]

why do we need to pan map during screenshot making?

[johnarnold]

Got it to work BUT when I saved the 'image' displayed in Renderdoc (which is from an area of perhaps 1 square mile or kilometer_ and load the save rdc into Blender all I get is what appears to be one particular building not the whole area I see displayed in Render doc. Any ideas?