All advertising must be removed from the model before being considered for the 3D Buildings layer.

Improving your model such that its quality is clearly superior will increase the chance that your model is accepted. Tips for improving your model:

• Improve accuracy or realism of textures.
• Reduce number of polygons.
• Use texture files that support alpha channels, such as PNG files.

Your model may not be accepted for one or more of the following reasons:

• Building is not visible in the current Google Earth imagery
• Building is currently under construction and is not completed

If you disagree with the reasoning above, you may consider the following options:

• Re-submit your model with a link in the description to pictures that show the building and its surroundings
• Re-submit your model with a link that shows when the building will finish construction

• Move your building downward into the terrain until all corners are at or below ground level.
• You may consider building-up the terrain that surrounds your building. The terrain must intersect with the terrain in Google Earth, and it must be textured with a realistic color image.

• In Google SketchUp, make sure that the terrain mode is enabled by clicking "Tools" > "Google Earth" > "Toggle Terrain," and move your model vertically until the building is largely above the terrain. Please note that sinking your model to look flush with the terrain is still encouraged.
• You may consider building a terrain that surrounds your building. The terrain must intersect with the terrain in Google Earth, and it must be textured with a realistic color image

This results in increased loading time or a diminished sense of realism within Google Earth. Remove excess trees, cars, people or other extraneous objects before resubmitting your model for consideration.

We recommend using high-quality and properly sized photographs to produce textures:

• Texture the entire model, including the roof. For faces that can't be photographed, such as the roof, use the imagery in Google Earth. If Google Earth's imagery is too blurry, or, outdated (the building was developed after the imagery was taken) then it's acceptable to use SketchUp materials provided the color and scale are as accurate as possible.
• Use one photo for a face to enhance a model's realism. Please make sure that the face is completely covered with the photo, and no sky or ground imagery can be seen.
• We suggest using images that are greater than 256 pixels wide but less than 512 pixels. It's possible to use images greater than 1024 pixels and less than 2048 pixels; however, files larger than 10MB won't be accepted into the Google 3D Warehouse.

Check the height of a door to approximately determine the height of the building. The average height for a door is 7 ft (2.13m).

We suggest pursuing one of the following options before resubmitting your model for consideration.

If your building was modeled from the outline of a roof there may be some distortion in the terrain imagery, especially if the building is of significant height. Please ensure that the base of the model lines up with two visible edges of the building foundation, as seen in the terrain imagery.

Align your building's footprint with the foundation lines visible on the terrain imagery. You can check the alignment from Google SketchUp by clicking "Tools" > "Google Earth" > "Place Model." When the model has been correctly located, re-submit the model for consideration into the 3D Buildings layer.

If the terrain you create is too large or incorrectly textured, we won't accept your model.

• Avoid overlapping terrain with other geometry, such as other buildings.
• Increase the accuracy and realism of the terrain you create to better integrate with existing terrain data.
• Increase the resolution of the terrain texture or use a more realistic texture.

If your model contains too many polygons, its file size will be too large to load into Google Earth. This happens the most often for several reasons:

• Curved faces are made up of more sides than needed. The standard number of sides SketchUp creates for a circle is 24 and for an arc is 12. These numbers are often much more than needed. If properly textured, a column can give the same appearance with 3 sides as it can with 24 sides. Sometimes even a single face can be effective if it has a good texture of a curved column applied to it.
• The inside of your model contains extra geometry. Check the inside of your model for any extra faces that cannot be seen from the outside. An easy way to reduce polygon count in a model is to make it into a completely hollow shell.
• Too many architectural details have been modeled. Only model the details that are defining characteristics of the building. Often by using a good photo texture on a face, there is no need to model all of the details. An good example is stair steps. Great looking steps can be made by creating a sloped ramp with a good textured applied to it. This can reduce the number of polygons of a 10 step staircase from 20 down to 1.

• When importing textures, please ensure that the "Use as texture" option is selected.
• If your model is Z-fighting with an image, right-click on the image and click "Explode." Please note that you may need to re-apply the texture once the image has been exploded.
• If two faces are Z-fighting, click on one of the faces and press the Delete key on your keyboard

If your model contains a number of individual buildings, you should split it up into several models and upload them each individually.

• Break the model into individual files.
• Open the model and Zoom-Extents to check that an extraneous piece of geometry is not located far away from the model.
• If the model is in a city block, break the model into individual files, using a gray color material on the hidden walls.