Lasse van den Bosch Christensensen
Thesis Attachment
Email Correspondence 07
Beryl Reid



Subject:
Re: Regarding geo-modeling on Google Earth
From:
Beryl Reid
Date:
02/25/2014 03:07 PM
To:
Lasse van den Bosch Christensen

Hi Lasse,
Thanks for contacting me. I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I was traveling and not keeping up with my email.

First I want to say that I feel I got so much more out of my modeling experiences than I expected. I began geo modeling in 2008-2009. I began doing it so I could learn to create 3D models with SketchUp. I was teaching SketchUp to my students ( I was a computer teacher then, now I am retired). The best way to learn something is to teach it, as they say. I quickly became addicted to SketchUp. I found it to be so intuitive and so elegantly simply. I spent many hours a day. 
As teaching is in my blood I also discovered the SketchUp help forum and began helping other users, beginners and advanced. I met so many wonderful people from all around the world through the forum.

As a result of my work in modeling and the help forum, I began to help out with Google's geo education program. I taught workshops to teachers in Dublin, London, Washington DC and other places. Google paid all my travel expenses and treated me extremely well! I also traveled to Rome for a week at Google's expense. They were great to me.

I also became a top contributor to the Google Earth help forum ( which I still do). So when the final day of Geo Modeling happened ( this October 1, 2013) I was actually being treated to another great travel experience from Google ( I was in California - Mountain View and San Jose) for their bi annual "TC summit". I have to tell you, that they really know how to treat their volunteers well! The party(s) were incredible and there were many treats to take home.

So, even though I am sad about the demise of personal geo modeling on Google Earth, I feel so rich for the experience, the learning and especially for the travel and people I have met.

I met all the people on the SketchUp team too, and they are wonderful. They have evolved and seem very optimistic about the direction that Trimble is taking. They are getting great support from Trimble and have actually done more software development since they left Google. I'm a beta tester for SketchUp and have had the opportunity to see all the new versions of SketchUp - my FAVORITE computer program still.

I do feel badly for all the younger people who may have taken geo modeling to a new level. They have such enthusiasm and talent. But in the digital world, you have to count on change and staying in one place is not going to happen. I think of how rich my life was made by the time I spent and look forward to the next phase, I'm not looking back hoping to resurrect what has already happened.

Please feel free to contact me if I didn't answer all your questions. I am "on the road" again for a few days, but should reply within a week.

Sincerely,
Beryl Reid



On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Lasse van den Bosch Christensen <lasselvdbc@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Beryl,

I've been trying to contact you trough the official forum for '3D Modeling for Google Earth & Maps', but managed to find your email, trough this discussion.

I hope that you don't feel like I'm intruding.

I'm an art and design student researching the drastic changes happening to SketchUp, the 3D Warehouse and Google Earth over the past two years.

I started a discussion on the official forum, trying to find modelers who would like to share their experiences, but I'm also trying to contact modelers directly. Currently I'm in contact with Kieth Lurie and Matthias Bassler, who both have been active members of the community. I'm contacting you because of your devotion and massive contribution to the platforms.

Would you like to talk about your contribution to the platforms? I'm interested in the investments you made in building up the platforms, what you 'earned' from being a contributor and how you see yourself as a modeler in relation to the provider who makes the platform possible. Furthermore I'm interested in what kind of future scenario you would like to see for the modelers, deemed that the changes applied to Google Earth is replacing contributions made by modelers with auto-generated content.

I sincerely hope that you would like to share. Feel free to reply in any way.

All the best,

Lasse van den Bosch Christensen

Master Student at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.