In celebration of the new year many people shoot off fireworks, and we love to show off the work of GEB reader ‘Steven’ who took it a step further and created some great 3D fireworks in Google Earth! As you can read about in his blog, the fireworks are intended to duplicate the 2011 Taiwan New Years Eve show, based on the simulation that you can view here.
As you can see from the photo above, the fireworks aren’t just simple animated images — they’re fully 3D! Some of them shoot into the sky, and some wrap around the Taipei 101 tower. As Steven points out in his post, animations like this are only possible because of the work of 3D modelers that created the buildings. In this case, credit goes to user Tang Huang who created the exceptionally detailed model of the Taipei 101 tower.
To see the fireworks in action, you can view them here using the Google Earth Plug-in,
download this KMZ file, or watch the video below:
For another fun way to view fireworks, Keir at Google Maps Mania built a map that allows you to view video from celebrations around the world. It’s a simple map that does a great job.
Happy New Year!
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.