MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile first South American country with cities Google Earth 3D

Valparaíso is one of the cities with the new system mapping

Internet users all over the globe will soon be able to better understand what cities like Santiago and Valparaíso look like. Chile is set to become the first South American country to have buildings in some of its cities rendered in 3-D through Google Earth.

The popular mapping program shows satellite images of the earth’s surface, including cities and towns, in varying degrees of resolution. Many cities are now rendered in 3-D, some with a greater degree of detail than others.

For example, through the program, users can go to Paris virtually and see a 3-D model of the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower.

Creating these virtual programs does necessarily require artistic skills. With the program Building Maker, it is possible to simply select a city and choose which building to construct based on photos.

Once ready, the model appears automatically in a special 3-D section of the Google Earth program, which now includes 94 cities throughout the world.

According to an announcement by Google Earth, some of Chile’s buildings have already been rendered in the virtual map through SketchUp—a program that is not directly associated with the Google project—and Warehouse, a more advanced program that requires permission from Google to appear in the virtual sphere.

By Adrienne Lee – Santiago Times