14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced the finalists of the Model Your Town Competition that challenged people around the world to create a replica of their city or town in 3D. The idea, which is obvious when you look at the prizes, was to get the community involved and perhaps turn this into a school project. The competition ran since December, 3D modeling isn't exactly a fast process even with the simplified tools Google provides, but with all entries tallied, it's now time for the public to weigh in and choose a winner.
"The first-ever Google Model Your Town Competition has entered the public voting phase. It’s now up to you to help decide which of the five finalist towns should be the overall winner. Cast your vote before May 1," Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp for Education program manager, announced.
"These five teams used Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker to create beautifully detailed 3D models of their communities — and now they’re viewable in Google Earth by everyone in the world," she explained.
The five towns chosen to go to the final round are:
· Barranco (Lima, Peru); · Braunschweig (Niedersachsen, Germany); · Donostia - San Sebastián (Gipuzkoa, Spain); · Dursley (Gloucestershire, United Kingdom); · West Palm Beach (Florida, United States).
"The winning town will receive an event hosted by Google in their honor, US $10,000 for their local schools and more. Don’t forget to vote by May 1, and we’ll announce the winning town by May 15," Google restated the prizes.
Google has looked at all the entries, several hundreds of them, and has decided that these five towns have made the best effort. Interestingly, though, it looks like all the towns, except one, have been modeled by just one person and not by a team effort like Google would have hoped. Even so, the results are pretty impressive and everyone wins. Google gets more 3D content for Google Earth and people get to see and explore their towns in three dimensions.