Google Earth and SketchUp project in Aberdeen

If you’ve seen the SketchUp 3D models of buildings around the planet in Google Earth, you’ll have an inkling of the potential it offers for towns and cities to make a mark on the web.

I’ve been playing with SketchUp for about 18 months now and waiting for the moment to create a social media project using it and Google Earth. That opportunity came last week when I read an article in the Press & Journal in which Cllr Irene Cormack proposed Aberdeen celebrate Granite Month in May 2011.

I fished out the Aberdeen City Council booklet entitled Aberdeen’s Granite Trail and there it was, ready-made for me, a project to use SketchUp to model all 29 of the city’s granite landmarks.

So, I gave Cllr Cormack a call. She was enthusiastic and suggested I take it further. The result is this video which I thought would be an appropriate way to demonstrate what Google Earth is and how SketchUp works.

I’ve emailed it to the relevant officer in the council. I know the authority has very little spare cash, so I think I’m more looking for profile and suggestions as to how I could get this project off the ground. I think the business model is either funding from a social grant-giving body or commercial sponsorship. Of course, I could always use crowdsourcing techniques with a facebook page to generate interest and do it voluntarily.

That’s an option, but I’m trying to make a living and I also genuinely think this is an opportunity to reach out to people who wouldn’t normally venture into this part of the net, if they went to the net at all.