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Google Maps Floor Plans

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Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, businesses have the right to upload their floor plans. And, it's perfectly fine to draw your own and upload those.

[IANAL] If they draw them themselves, yes they can do what they wish. On the other hand, in the US, using the "blueprints" is probably going to be a violation of the copyright of the design professional who prepared them. Typical contract language restricts the Owner's use to "this project" and such rights terminate "upon completion of this project." [AIA Document B105-2007] Upon execution of this Agreement, the Arch…

Just like using AirBnB is against most apartment leases, and crossing the street when the light is red is illegal. Welcome to a new age of civil disobedience, where people freely carry around ice cream cones in their back pockets on Sunday!

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#52

So it's only available in Google maps on Android, not on the iphone or on the web? If it's just for Android I'm not submitting my building.

They can, and I imagine will, make it available on web. But the iPhone Maps application isn't developed by Google, so they can't add it. It looks like Apple moving away from using Google maps, anyhow.

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#53
Google are building various tools which allow users to contribute data (especially to maps). However they don't provide an easy way for users to choose to release their own contributions under an open license. I asked Marissa Mayer this question at SXSW 2011 and she said they would change it, however I haven't seen this happen. I would very much like to see Google change their policy so that by default any user generated contributions are released under a license which permits reuse without further permission from Google.

My question is at 28:30 http://audio.sxsw.com/2011/podcasts/GoogleMarrisaMayer.mp3

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#54
If anyone's curious about an example, Mall of America is one of the locations mapped with this feature, here's the Google blog post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-frontier-for-goog...

It's a pretty interesting development for me to watch as the app I'm currently working on named Mashupforge (http://mashupforge.com) lets people easily create interactive maps out of image floorplans.

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#55
post #6

How long until someone uses these to make first person shooter game maps automatically? (Using Google Maps outdoor mapping data for games is a great idea, like the tower defense game from a couple days ago).

What game from a couple of days ago?

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#57
post #6

How long until someone uses these to make first person shooter game maps automatically? (Using Google Maps outdoor mapping data for games is a great idea, like the tower defense game from a couple days ago).

Well, they'd have the plans, but what about room height, textures, furniture, and other details?

Why not take texture samples from the locational photos already provided. Even if that was the only human interactive stage where the "designer" literally only marks sections of images for the textures.

Ceiling heights can likely be extrapolated simply from photographs with the right programming. Find a photo with 5 people in it and approximate the building height from the peoples photographs.

I personally can approximate the height and width of a house simply by counting bricks and shingles, because I work in construction I need to know if my scaffolding poles or ladders will reach and you're lucky if you get a tape measure to extend past 7ft without it buckling. (a sheet of shingles is 2ft wide, so every 3 shingle tabs is 2 ft. A brick and mortar roughly make 4", so 3 courses of brick make roughly 1ft. vinyl siding is normally double 4.5", double 5" or double 6" per sheet in height, one sheet is 12' long. Concrete board is generally 3ft by 8" high. Aluminum is always 8" high, generally 12' or 12.5' wide; If I can do this without a pencil and paper inside 30 seconds, it shouldn't be difficult to make an algorithm to work this out.)

Extrapolating the interior of a building would likely be much harder, however pictures of these often come with scale references (IE people), but as with outside everything has to meet building codes and everything is made out of standardized parts. However, one great clue is handrails. First floor railings have to be a minimum of 36" high, second floor railings have to be a minimum of 42" high (standard is 42" by code for commercial spaces, regardless of height). Maximum 4" gap between vertical members, (generally made 4" on centre as a precaution), and no horizontal members between 4" in height and 35" in height as to make a railing climbable by a small child.

Turning a rendering of an entire mall level in a game into simply picking colour swatches would be huge. Yes a pro studio is going to invest more time in polish, but for the guy making an iPhone app and is never going to see a huge return on the time he invests. Then accepting a bit of 'cookie cutter' genericness in level design won't be a huge compromise if it's in a great game.

The national building codes of countries would give you all the information you need to extrapolate the size of rooms and buildings.

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[IANAL] If they draw them themselves, yes they can do what they wish. On the other hand, in the US, using the "blueprints" is probably going to be a violation of the copyright of the design professional who prepared them. Typical contract language restricts the Owner's use to "this project" and such rights terminate "upon completion of this project." [AIA Document B105-2007] Upon execution of this Agreement, the Arch…

Just like using AirBnB is against most apartment leases, and crossing the street when the light is red is illegal. Welcome to a new age of civil disobedience, where people freely carry around ice cream cones in their back pockets on Sunday!

That's quite a different claim from the rights based argument advanced previously.

When it comes to Google, this isn't civil disobedience.

It's simply taking advantage of the fact that the copyrights it is interested in ignoring are mostly held by many different people unlikely to have the resources to enforce them vigorously.

BTW, it's Ice Cream Sandwiches Google wants everyone to carry.

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#59
post #8

Taking bets on the odds of this being disallowed for places where it would be actually useful (for example: airports; municipal buildings; skyscrapers).

The competition already has this for airports: http://binged.it/HnKPqO Compare: http://g.co/maps/8e9xp

Open Street Map doesn't have it, but here's the link for comparison anyway

http://osm.org/go/TZHqgKAqa--

Re: Google Maps Floor Plans

#60
post #8

Taking bets on the odds of this being disallowed for places where it would be actually useful (for example: airports; municipal buildings; skyscrapers).

How would one disallow this? The DMCA doesn't cover "I don't want that information available".

Under the CII (critical infrastructure information) Act, to prevent terrorists exploiting it for planning attacks: http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1193091627563.shtm
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