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Slated to be the next big thing in 3D mapping? That’s what stealthy Berkeley, CA based company earthmine is hoping to be. Earthmine takes over where Google Street View and Microsoft Virtual Earth left off. Just like Google and Microsoft, earthmine sends out multiple cars with powerful camera’s strapped to their roofs. However,unlike the other two, earthmine uses a stereoscopic system with wide angle lenses that allow them to capture fully spherical images of the surrounding environment. The images gathered are extremely rich with data. So clear, in fact, that they will be able to be accurately measured despite the perspective issues that arise from creating three dimensional images on a two dimensional screen. Photosynth and Everyscape are two innovators in this space, but do not intend to map the world.

Although many of the existing map products are consumer based, earthmine plans to look for enterprise clients. The quality of data put out by eathmine’s cameras will supposedly be perfectly suited for government agencies, insurance companies, real estate planners, architecture firms as well as many others. Such robust 3D maps will be able to serve as accurate representations of real places. Co-founder Ristevski analogizes his product as the SketchUp for the real world.

In December of 2007, earthmine announced an agreement with CalTech, which allows the company to utilize software and algorithms created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and utilized on the Mars Exploration Rover

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