# Building imagery investigation — 22 September 2026

The current game is an open-data reconstruction, not a photographic scan of Ra’anana. Only explicitly credited landmark façades use matched photographs. Mapillary photographs are currently a separate viewer; adding generic textures does not make an individual building accurate.

| Source | What it can provide | Evidence / current limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Google Street View | Recognizable street-level panoramas through Google's viewer/API | The game's existing Google Street View link opens imagery near the player using Maps URLs (no API key required). An embedded API viewer needs project configuration. Do not extract Google photographs into this game's independent façade textures. |
| Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles | Licensed streaming textured 3D mesh, where covered | Different from Street View and potentially useful with a compatible renderer. Google Cloud/API configuration required. Ra’anana surface coverage was NOT verified: official interactive coverage page rendered blank during this investigation. Worldwide terrain coverage does not imply buildings are available. |
| Mapillary | Photographs that can be adapted with attribution and share-alike obligations | Official image licence is CC BY-SA. Existing game subset contains twelve central Ahuza captures; not citywide photographic coverage. To create accurate façades, identify the actual building and façade plane, record capture/author/date/licence, rectify the photo, mask occlusions, and manually verify alignment. |
| Ra’anana municipality / Ofek | Aerial orthophotos, oblique photography, 3D imagery | Municipal tender 12/2025, committee decision 5 August 2025, recommends Ofek Aerial Photography (1987). Confirms a strong local data lead, NOT an open mesh download, completed delivery, or permission to redistribute. User subsequently confirmed game use is approved; actual mesh access is still missing (see 23 September findings). |
| Israel3D | GIS-positioned urban building models; Ra’anana listed | Commercial models sold by subscription/purchase. No verified free redistribution licence or evidence of photo-textured façades. Not imported. |
| KartaView | Alternative crowdsourced street imagery | Official documentation describes map coverage lines. No useful Ra’anana capture set verified in this pass; not imported. |
| GovMap / municipal GIS | Reference geography, layers, aerial context | No reusable textured Ra’anana mesh verified. Public viewing access alone does not establish an open redistribution licence. |

## Primary sources
- Google terms, restrictions on scraping / creating content from Google Maps Content: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms
- Google Maps URLs: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/urls/get-started
- Google 3D coverage: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/3d/coverage
- Google Map Tiles API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/tile/overview
- Mapillary image licence: https://help.mapillary.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001770409-CC-BY-SA-license-for-open-data
- Ra’anana tender decision: https://www.raanana.muni.il/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/D7A4D7A8D795D798D795D7A7D795D79C20D79ED79BD7A8D7962012-2025.pdf
- Israel3D: https://www.israel3d.co.il/urban-models/
- KartaView coverage documentation: https://kartaview.org/doc/explore-imagery

## Recommended path
For an immediately recognizable walking environment, build a carefully matched Ahuza block with Mapillary/permissioned local photographs first. For citywide accuracy, seek an export and game-redistribution licence for the municipality/Ofek textured mesh and elevation data. Keep Google Street View available as a separate real-photo view; consider licensed Google 3D streaming only after verifying local coverage and the intended integration's terms. No purchase, external message, or new paid API activation was performed.


## Direct endpoint investigation — 23 September 2026

The user has confirmed Ofek use is approved for this game. The outstanding dependency is access to the actual Ra’anana mesh/imagery, not another approval request.

Verified live municipal GIS configuration:
https://v5.gis-net.co.il/v5/raanana/Data/GetMap
The endpoint needs the normal public viewer session to be initialized first at https://v5.gis-net.co.il/v5/raanana . Its `obliquePhotographyUrl` points to Pinkas/Oblivision, not Ofek. The external-focusing-systems list was empty.

Working municipal photo viewer:
https://www.pinkasonline.co.il/OblivisionJS/index.aspx?project=Raanana&lon=34.8706&lat=32.1836
Verified visually without a login: four oblique views plus overhead photography; images dated 18 May 2021. The About panel reports 9,551 images and 99.5 square kilometres of total oblique coverage (the latter is the viewer's reported coverage, not the city's area). Copyright is credited to Pinkas Group. Four Yad LaBanim wall patches now use two original Pinkas image tiles, projected onto matched wall planes. These are Pinkas assets, not Ofek assets. Original tile URLs, date and wall correspondences are recorded in /data/yad-labanim.json. Copyright remains with Pinkas Group; the Commons CC BY-SA licence does not apply to these municipal tiles.

Actual Ofek-published Ra’anana catalog item:
https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=c059ef4f1b61438182819a912b1382fe
Publisher: ofek_gis_2. Title: רעננה_251030. Layer: RAANANA_021453.csv Events. A live count query returned SIX points, with coordinate/elevation-like fields and no building polygons, photographic URLs or mesh. These sparse points have not been misrepresented as building heights or imported into gameplay.

Ofek's public ArcGIS organization catalog includes mesh services for other cities, but this search found no Ra’anana mesh. Its separately published server at https://oapgis.ofekonline.com/arcgis/rest/services failed HTTPS connection attempts through both Python and curl; no authenticated or private service was accessed. Other Ofek-named building layers found in ArcGIS covered different cities and were excluded by geographic bounds.

Also discovered: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0c4b6c53a9b84b86a0b18c2752ead814 — raanana_24_20, a public overhead raster named Raanana_3Channels_2024_Clip. Publisher uribason; no Ofek attribution verified, not imported as Ofek data or façade imagery.

Result: four photographed Yad LaBanim wall patches and a corrected low north annex are rendered in the game. Building details also links to the original viewer. A direct Ofek textured-mesh import remains unavailable; no such import is claimed.