Google Sphere is a fun interactive experiment created by Mr.doob that transforms the Google homepage into a spinning 3D sphere. All the page elements — the logo, search box, buttons, and links — get rearranged into a rotating sphere that you control with your mouse. It’s a simple visual trick that looks surprisingly cool in action.
The experiment was originally released in May 2009 as part of Google’s Chrome Experiments project. Mr.doob, a creative developer known for pushing what browsers can do, built it to showcase the -webkit-transform style that allows DOM elements to be rotated and scaled. By porting his custom 3D engine from ActionScript to JavaScript, he created the illusion of 3D on a 2D surface using nothing but scaling.
When you open Google Sphere, everything on the page starts orbiting in a spherical pattern. Move your mouse across the screen and the sphere follows, rotating left and right based on your cursor position. The effect is smooth and oddly mesmerising. Even though everything is constantly moving, the links are still clickable if you can catch them.
The original version also let you perform real searches. Type something in the search box, hit enter, and image results would appear and join the spinning sphere. The more you searched, the more images would get added to the rotation. That feature no longer works since Google retired the API it relied on, but the visual effect is still fun to play with.
Google Sphere is a great example of early creative web experiments that showed what browsers were capable of beyond just displaying static pages.
How To Use Google Sphere
Once the page loads, all the Google elements start spinning in a sphere formation. Move your mouse around the screen to control the rotation. Drag left and the sphere rotates left. Drag right and it goes right. The movement is smooth and responsive, making it easy to spin things around however you like.
The links within the sphere are still functional. If you hover over one and click, it’ll take you where it normally would. It’s a bit tricky to click moving targets, but that’s part of the fun.
The search functionality originally worked but is now broken due to API changes. You can still type in the search box, but results won’t load into the sphere like they used to. The visual experience is still worth checking out though.
Google Sphere sits alongside other Mr.doob creations like Google Gravity and Google Space. If you enjoy this one, his other experiments are worth exploring too. They’re all playful demonstrations of what creative coding can do with a simple webpage.
Credit goes to https://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/google-sphere/ for his great work at creating this experience.