OSM-3D is becoming global. The interactive 3D web application has grown siginificantly from its original German coverage and covers now most European countries on a virtual globe.
The virtual "osm.globe" combines the free geodata from OpenStreetMap (OSM) with digital elevation models offering a global interactive 3D experience made completely from free or crowdsoured geodata. OSM offers far more than only street data. It also includes objects like POIs, buildings, trees, traffic signals, bus stops or even opening hours of shops. And the amount of data continues to grow with exceptional speed. In particular, the number of buildings and other objects, which could not be mapped from ground that easily, is growing since Microsoft granted permission to OSM to trace from Bing Maps imagery in December 2010. The database currently stores about 30 million buildings for Europe. This is quite a difference to the roughly 100.000 buildings that have been available in the first version of OSM-3D for Germany. Mappers even start to add more details to buildings such as the height, number of floors, roof type, roof alignment, and facade colors.
The 3D globe (XNavigator) developed mainly by Arne Schilling from the GIScience Resarch Group at the University of Heidelberg features a physical simulated atmosphere, simulation of daytime or additional new functionalities like the possibility to simulate flights following GPS-Tracks (GPX) provided by users. It is now also possible to drape different OSM maps or satellite imagery onto the elevation model. Furthermore, the 3D globe now can be integrated into a web-site as Java applet (featuring a JavaScript API), as well as Java Webstart application or users can download and install it as Java Desktop application.
Also further typical geo-services such as routing, geocoding or POI search (as known from http://OpenRouteService.org) or overview maps and further options are now available for all of Europe within the 3D globe. The model is being processed, generated and provided by tools and online services developed by the GIScience Resarch Group.
This 3D geo-platform demonstrates the potential of free and through crowdsouring generated geodata like OpenStreetMap. In order to maximize interoperability, the whole platform is based on open standards and services of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
OSM-3D Screenshots: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM-3D_Screenshots
OSM-3D Videos: http://www.osm-3d.org/videos.en.htm
OSM-3D Project: http://www.osm-3d.org/home.en.htm
OSM-3D Wiki: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM-3D
OSM-3D Web Interface: http://www.osm-3d.org/map.htm
OSM-3D Download & JavaWebstart: http://www.osm-3d.org/Start.en.htm
XNavigator Wiki: http://koenigstuhl.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/xnaviwiki
Chair of Geoinformatics, GIScience Research Group , University of Heidelberg: http://giscience.uni-hd.de