Here at GEB we have traditionally celebrated the new year with a Google Earth fireworks animation created by Steven Ho. This past new year we decided to expand on the idea by allowing you to create fireworks at the coordinates of your choice. This, in turn, has inspired Steven Ho to create a new animation to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival, (also known as Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year).
His animation shows Chinese couplets falling from the sky, with the camera slowly rotating around the location you select – all set to music. Chinese couplets are a popular form of Chinese poetry that consists of a pair of lines of verse that match up in a number of different ways. You can learn a bit more about them on the Wikipedia page. They are popular for decorating doorways and also often used during celebrations, such as the Chinese Spring Festival.
He has also created a similar animation for the Taiwan Lantern Festival, which shows lanterns flying up into the sky at night.
To see YouTube videos of both animations and create animations for the location of your choice, see the full post on Steven’s blog.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.