Remember being a kid, sitting on the floor with thousands of LEGO blocks surrounding you and construction ideas brimming in your head?
Well now you can return to that happy place and start creating your own LEGO city with the world’s biggest virtual LEGO set.
Google has crafted a web-based collaborative 3D building experiment called Build that lets web users construct their own online LEGO structures with more than 8 trillion bricks.
“Build may look simple, but this collaborative 3D building experience would not have been possible a couple of years ago,” said Lockey McGrath, product marketing manager, Google Australia and New Zealand in a post on Google’s Australian blog. “It shows how far browser technology has come and how the web is an amazing platform for creativity. We made the bricks with WebGL, which enables powerful 3D graphics right in the browser and demonstrates the upper limit of current WebGL graphics performance. We then mixed in Google Maps (another Aussie invention) so you can put your creation in a LEGO world alongside everyone else’s.”
The experiment is launching in Australia and New Zealand to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick down under, but should be available in additional countries soon.
You can start creating your own towering brick monstrosities at buildwithchrome.com. Need some inspiration? If you're already on Chrome, have a look at existing examples of LEGO medieval castles, sea snakes, giant mouse cursors, smiling monsters and a Kiwi on Build or visit the webpage of LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya aka “Brickartist.”