The Whole World in a Snow Globe: Google's 3D Tiles Reimagined
How we use Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles for a unique Christmas experience.
Every year, we at Ubilabs face an exciting challenge: How do we translate our technological expertise into a Christmas greeting that is fun? This year, we invite you the world in a snow globe. Our digital Christmas card combines photorealistically rendered geospatial data with an interactive physics simulation in the browser.
Technological Christmas Magic in 3D: Our Virtual Snow Globe
It has been a long-standing tradition for us to forego classic postal mail during the Christmas season and instead invest the budget and creativity into a digital project. The goal is always to test out current technologies that we work with on behalf of clients in a completely new, playful context. For 2025, we have literally detached the Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles from the map and placed them into a virtual snow globe.
Try nowA Classic, Digitally Reimagined
The concept of the snow globe is timeless. But instead of the typical haptic experience, we use WebGL and geospatial data for an immersive 3D experience. Upon opening the application, users find themselves in front of a three-dimensional snow globe. Inside: well-known landmarks and places from all over the world.
The key lies in the interaction. The globe can be grabbed and rotated with the mouse or finger. A physics engine ensures that the virtual snowflakes whirl up and dance through the globe. The scene is accompanied by subtle Christmas music.
The Tech Stack: 3D Tiles Meets Three.js
Technologically, the application is a showcase of what is possible in a modern web browser today. The basis is formed by the Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles. This data is typically used to create immersive 3D map views for navigation or urban planning.
For our Christmas card, we chose a different approach:
- Clipping & Isolation: We extract ("clip") specific areas from Google's global 3D data. Instead of showing a full map, we isolate the building or landscape within a spherical cutout.
- New Context: The extracted 3D Tiles are loaded into a Three.js environment. This allows us to treat the geospatial data like classic game assets and combine them with other 3D objects – in this case, the glass sphere and the particle system for the snow.
- Web Performance: The biggest challenge was making this computationally intensive 3D data display smoothly and live in the browser without requiring additional plug-ins or long loading times.
Your Desired Location in the Snow Globe
In addition to the curated landmarks, we wanted to give users the freedom to discover their own favorite places. Any point on earth can be targeted via the "Custom Mode."
Using the Google Places Autocomplete function, you simply search for an address – be it your company location, your childhood home, or the site of your last vacation. The application virtually flies there, loads the corresponding 3D data of the surroundings, and places it inside the snow globe. You can manually readjust the exact cutout.
This transforms a technical demonstration into a personal experience. You can send your individual snow globe as a digital holiday greeting with a personal message to colleagues or friends.
Try It Out
We warmly invite you to test the application. Immerse yourself in our digital winter world and explore your favorite places – no matter where you are in the world.
The entire Ubilabs team wishes you a wonderful holiday season and an innovative start to the New Year!
Create your own snow globe now
