Google Earth has always been a fascinating tool and with the new exposure it’s bound to get thanks to the integration in Google Maps, it will be an even greater way to explore vast landscapes or cities around the world. More recently, Google has been working on giving a third dimension to the cities and towns of the world in Google Earth. With the help of eager volunteers, it has been adding a great deal of 3D buildings from various places. Now, it’s done the same for Lisbon, Portugal, by introducing a massive update to the 3D models available.

“The city of Lisbon, Portugal is the latest addition to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. Over 14,000 models have been added to fill in around areas where many user-contributed models already existed,” Nicole Drobeck, 3D Data Specialist at Google, wrote. “Since Google Building Maker added Lisbon to the available cities to model, geo-modelers have been adding incredible 3D buildings throughout the area,” she added.

Lisbon was added to the list of supported cities in Google Building Maker just a couple of months ago. Since then, users proud of their city have been toiling away creating 3D models for many of the buildings, over 14,000 in total. Building Maker is a simple tool designed for exactly what the name says. It is available for many cities around the world and its coverage is expanding all the time.



Not all the models were created with Google Building Maker though, as the tool may be too simplistic for the ones with a complex architecture, as is usual in older European cities. For these, Google’s SketchUp tool comes in handy, and plenty of the buildings from Lisbon in Google Earth have been created by more skillful modelers.

Other cities that have been recreated in 3D in Google Earth recently:
- Dortmund in 3D in Google Earth
- Vienna Gets Showcased in 3D in Google Earth
- Madrid Gets the 3D Treatment in Google Earth.