Free 3D Modelling Software from Google

Google Earth is a thing of wonderment and beauty but did you know that there is a piece of free software from Google called Google Sketchup in which you can easily design a building of any shape or dimension then place the building in a physical location on Google Earth and then invite others to view your building. This could be a housing development or even an extension on to an existing building. It is possible to render the outside surfaces with photos stored as JPG's so that the external appearance looks like one of your houses. Apparently, the software only takes a couple of hours to get to grips with. If your building is noteworthy, you can submit it to 3D Warehouse and they will include it in their catalogue of 3D Models.

This could be an incredibly powerful way of marketing your new development to the public. Using the Google Earth flight sim software users could fly around your development and zoom in to get a virtual tour of the development.

Check out the site for further details.

http://sketchup.google.com/