You can see our house from here! Watch this amazing 3D virtual tour of Telford
It's an app that lets people visit the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower without even leaving their seat.
Google Earth includes 3D digital versions of the world's most famous cities and landmarks – and now Telford has joined the ranks of places available to explore.
Combining hand-designed models with automatically rendered buildings, the app re-creates every house, park, school and church in the town.
By joining photographs used in Google Street View, the maps have an eerie accuracy. The digital renderings of the town include signs on the sides of buildings, cars driving through the streets and accurate road markings.
It is all part of a new version of Google Earth that attempts to add an educational element to the popular globetrotting app.
And while it's fantastic to spot a familiar landmark like the Iron Bridge or the famous cooling towers, the updated app promises to give people – especially youngsters – a first hand look at landmarks around the world, with experts from various organisations guiding them through the "voyages".
Dozens of these tours are available within the app, with NASA, the Jane Goodall Institute, the BBC, and even Muppets from Sesame Workshop leading the adventure.
"This is our gift to the world," Google Earth director Rebecca Moore said.
"It's a product that speaks to our deepest values around education and making information available to people."
Over the coming months, the digital Telford could be enhanced with knowledge cards letting armchair explorers learn more about the history of the area while they move around the area.
For those with virtual reality headsets, there's the opportunity to explore the town's landmarks in the VR version of the app.
Martin James, of Newport, spotted that Telford had been fully rendered in 3D – although his home town is yet to be available.
He put together a virtual flythrough of the town, which takes in many of the town's most impressive landmarks, including the Wrekin, Horsehay Works, Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge.
Martin said that the virtual town was "impressive".
"I stumbled across a relatively new feature of Google Earth when I discovered that Telford is one of the few places in the UK to have been digitally rendered into 3D by Google," he said.
"They use a combination of aerial and street views from Google Maps, which I thought was pretty impressive when you consider that every tree, hill and building has been constructed by their computers!
"They haven't done Wellington or Newport, but I put together a 'flythrough' video tour of Telford, taking in a few landmarks on the way."
The video is more than five minutes long and takes in most of Telford's major areas. It is set to Fly Like An Eagle.
It can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=RxczVcw3Su4
The rest of Shropshire, including Wellington and Newport, is yet to be made available in 3D, but can be viewed in the program as flat images.
