Earth History clock

We’ve heard suggestions over the years that Google should offer some kind of “historical 3D buildings”, where you could view 3D models of buildings from years past. While there are plenty of old buildings you can load from the 3D Warehouse, I’ve just stumbled across a 3D model that allows you to interact with it and view it in different states from across the centuries.

The model below is the Limburg monastery, created by SketchUp user Aerilius, who has created hundreds of amazing models (including one of the versions of Osama bin Laden’s compound that we highlighted a few years ago).

As you can see, the model itself is very well done and would stand on it’s own as a great example of SketchUp work. However, it gets amazing when you load the full KMZ file and view it in Google Earth. (note: disable the base 3D models in Google Earth while viewing this, as there is a different model found in this location)

When you load it, you’ll find a number of options appear in your [Places] on the left side of the screen, allowing you to see the building in different stages from 1300, to 1892, 1943 and the current state of it.

I tend to doubt we’ll ever see a feature like that built into Google Earth, as they have plenty of work to do to simply get us a fully-accurate 3D representation of the current state of the world. However, this is a very creative use of SketchUp modeling, and I hope we see more of them come out. If you know of any other models that have this feature, please leave a comment below and share them with us.