Earth Clock: A Digital Clock from Views of Earth that Resemble Numbers

Earth Clock, designed and built by CW&T in 2015, was originally built at FABRICA with support from tamasha. Earth Clock is a web-based digital clock assembled from views of Earth from above that resemble numbers.

Each view zooms in and out, weaving the unfamiliar and the familiar. Every few seconds, the views jump to a new location, revealing a digit that may be a building or terrain in a foreign place, but as the camera zooms out, the viewer can begin to associate it with familiar landscapes, discernible shapes of countries, and the distinct view of our planet. Earth Clock was originally built using the Google Earth API. Cesium offers much more control over the flyby acceleration and deceleration, along with a slew of other parameters. Migrating was relatively simple.

Each location in this app is handpicked by contributors to this project. To contribute, visit earthclock.cwandt.com.