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Put your town on the 3D map: Google Model Your Town Competition

People use Google SketchUp for all sorts of things. One of them is geo-modeling – making photo-textured models of real-life buildings that appear in Google Earth. For some, geo-modeling is a hobby; they get a kick out of building something that provides a real benefit to the people in their community. Local geo-modelers are the unsung heroes of the virtual world – no longer.

Our first-ever Google Model Your Town Competition is by far the biggest 3D modeling challenge we've ever launched. It's open to just about everyone (not just students), just about everywhere in the world. Form a team, model buildings (using SketchUp or Building Maker) and upload them by the end of February 2010.



You can model as many structures as you like – which types of buildings you choose to include is entirely up to you. The important thing is that your choices say something about the character and history of your town. You can even include links to videos and photo albums in your entry; this is really more of a 3D portrait contest for communities.

If your town wins, a bunch of us from the SketchUp team will visit, throw you a party and do our best to make you look like the local hero that you are. There are other prizes, too – check out the competition website for details, and start rounding up teammates!

Here's some inspiration (just to get your creative juices flowing):



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11 comments :

Unknown said...

Is this replacing the student modeling competitions that have occurred over the past three years, or will there still be one coming up in the spring?

mpe said...

No joy for Linux users :(

Dario Caruso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dario Caruso said...

good, I'm an architect, I could do during my free time ... but a moment, I use linux in my spare time ... And i can't use sketchup for linux, I'm sorry Google...

neeraj said...

is this compulsory to build in sketch up or we can do it in 3ds max etc.

Yurijs said...

To "Mpe" and "Dario Caruso":
Install and run Skethup on Linux using wine (software).
http://wiki.winehq.org/GoogleSketchup

To "Neeraj":
Modelling for Google Earth is more convenient using Sketchup. But SketchUp allows you to import 3D Studio (3DS) files. Import a file using the Import menu item in the File menu.

And check acceptance criteria before modelling:
http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/3dwh/acceptance_criteria.html

Good Luck!
8)

Yurijs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Is it ok for local businesses to sponsor local competitions? Let´s say my company wants our city to flourish in 3D models and we make PR for this competition with the added twist that when this competition is over we will select a local/regional winner for best model. Would that be ok? In the end it just means more contenders for Google so i guess it would be a true win-win situation.

Thomas Thomassen said...

I would have joined this of Google had decent satellite data for Norway.

fmb said...

Hi Google, nice competition.
is there a way we can upload a whole bunch of models at once`?
would help alot!

John said...

My submission was approved three weeks ago but does not appear as an 'orange balloon' on theworld map