Google Maps 3D: Data into Blender
Channel: Nicko16
Date: 2020-03-14

UPDATE - July 2024 - I can confirm this is working with: 
Blender 4.1.1
RenderDoc 1.31
MapsModelImporter 0.7.0  

In order to enable 'Inject into Process' in newer versions of RenderDoc you need to go into: 
Tools - Settings - General - 'Enable process injection' 
and restart the app.

In this video I show you how to extract 3D data from Google Maps using RenderDoc and the amazing MapsModelsImporter by Élie Michel.  Please consider donating on his Github page if you find this process useful:
https://github.com/eliemichel/MapsModelsImporter

This is the text that you need to add to the Chrome shortcut 'target' field to run it in debug mode (delete the existing contents beforehand):

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "SET RENDERDOC_HOOK_EGL=0 && START "" ^"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe^" --disable-gpu-sandbox --gpu-startup-dialog --disable_direct_composition=1"

or

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "SET RENDERDOC_HOOK_EGL=0 && START "" ^"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe^" --disable-gpu-sandbox --gpu-startup-dialog --disable_direct_composition=1"

If your Chrome is installed in a different location to the one above you may need to go in and change parts of this text.

You can download the MapsModelmporter addon here:
https://github.com/eliemichel/MapsModelsImporter/releases

You can download RenderDoc here:
https://renderdoc.org/

You can see a tutorial on cleaning up the mesh here:
https://youtu.be/XUkMY8Sp_AM

You can see Elie’s original video here:
https://youtu.be/X6Q7dbtXVZQ

You can download Blender here:
https://www.blender.org/download/

Donate to Élie here:
https://github.com/eliemichel/MapsModelsImporter

You can see how to use Blender GIS here:
https://youtu.be/YNtKnmRXVlo

Thanks also to Bjørn Terje Hansebråten who recommended this process to me in the Blender GIS comments.