This is what happens when you put Google Earth on a 48 screen display. In other words, awesome stuff, provided looking at life-sized representations of the cities and places you love does something for you. For me, just seeing it in action is impressive enough.
Thanks to details provided by the Google Lat Long blog, what we have is an awesome representation of Google Earth based on Google’s own Liquid Galaxy feature the mapping service. It should be noted Liquid Galaxy was designed with home computer screens in mind, and not displays that feature 100 million pixels across 48 individual displays that are working in unison.
Nevertheless, Google pulled it off, thanks to a partnership with Le Pavillon de l’Arsenal. The development of the display was done in conjunction with JCDecaux, which, according to their Wikipedia profile, ” is the largest outdoor advertising corporation in the world.”
Besides bringing Google Maps to a 48-screen setup, the goal of the project was also to give Parisans a look at what Paris might look like in the future. Google’s blog post explains further:
Late last year, the Paris Center for Architecture and Urbanism: Le Pavillon de l’Arsenal, approached us asking if they could use Google Earth to power a new interactive display highlighting the Paris metropolitan area in 2020 with upcoming buildings in 3D. Naturally, we were excited about the project, especially when they shared that the display would be 40 square meters – posing a fun and unique challenge.
The larger version of Google Earth is controlled by four touchscreens that can both pinch and zoom on the Google Earth image/area being viewed. Be sure and check out the video if you haven’t already, if, for nothing else, the incredible amount of wiring it took for the project to come to life.