Carisbrook Stadium was the only Dunedin building available in 3D on Google's internet map service before computer-savvy volunteers at a Google Model Your Town workshop in Dunedin this week added St Clair's Hydro Hotel.
At the workshop, Google senior business product manager Bruce Polderman said he was surprised a city with such a remarkable stock of heritage buildings had so few entries on his company's rapidly expanding 3D platform.
"When I came into Dunedin I was just blown away by the quality of the heritage buildings such as the railroad station.
"There is just so much potential here for stunning additions to Google Earth and Google Maps," Sydney-based Mr Polderman said.
A dozen people learned how to use a Google-owned drawing tool and how to add the results to Google Earth at the workshop.
The workshop was hosted by the Otago University Centre for Innovation.
It was led by Mr Polderman and Christchurch-based 3D modeller and architect Jason Mill.
Mr Polderman said the workshop was another step on an "audacious" path to render every building in the world.
This was to create a database with many uses, for when people expected search engines to move away from simple photographs and text.
The 3D models could be used for town planning to promote businesses.
They could be used to foster "virtual" tourism.
Or they could be used to simply assemble a record of the historical and current development of the built environment.
The buildings could also be tagged with as much information as internet users wanted to give them.
A community-produced database similar to text-heavy wikis already found online could be built.
Mr Mill said about 600 Christchurch buildings were modelled and added to Google Earth before the Canterbury earthquake reduced some to car parks.
They were now preserved online.
"And then you have Dunedin, which must have the best stock of heritage buildings in New Zealand, maybe of any city of its size in the world, and until the workshop only Carisbrook's been done. Even without looking at all the other uses, it's important to get them recorded. You don't know what you've got until it's gone."
