After documenting places like the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and the vertical walls of El Capitan in Yosemite, the Google Streetview team thought small for its latest project.
Aarian Marshall has good news for anyone who loves trains but hasn't been able to make the trek out to Hamburg, Germany to see Miniatur Wunderland: "[a] Google Maps project takes viewers inside the 215,000-resident city, which boasts a picturesque, Austrian-style village, a skiing lodge, a high-density downtown area, a working airport, and approximately 42,650 feet of track."
If you're not yet convinced of the awesomeness of Miniatur Wunderland, Marshall also writes that the model totals 14,000 square feet, including 1,270 signals, 3,050 switches, 8,850 cars, and 228,000 trees—all rund by run by 46 computers and. Moreover, 230 people spent 580,000 hours building the thing.
Google gets it, so working with a German company called Ubilabs, the tech giant built a "lil’Google car, which rode the mini rails, the mini streets, and the mini runways to reproduce the incredibly detailed model in 365-degree views."
So after watching the preview video created by the Google Streeview team below, access Google's work to document Miniatur Wunderland an image gallery and a blog post in addition to the full Streetview experience.
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