Some people out there have come up with a way to make a normal landscape or overhead photo look uncannily like it is a really detailed real-life model.

Heres a few examples: http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760

I am loving these, they look great. Would give it a try but i'm not sure how to do them.

I really like them too, could make a little toy London out of them! Too bad it won't be real though (sorry i'm being a kid again!)

The guy who did those pictures, Olivo Barbieri, did it with a helicopter and a tilt-shift lens, but i'm sure there is some way to fake it by editing it.

Looks nice. Theres a tutorial on how to do it in Photoshop here: http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/. Unfortunately I haven't got CS2, and i'm not sure it would work in older Photoshops - Hexagonal iris shapes for lens blur don't sound too familiar to me.

Photoshop Elements 3 doesn't even have the lens blur filter, let alone hexagonal iris shapes.

But i'm sure the basic idea could be mimicked in old-school photoshop versions and other software.

Theres a whole flickr group for this kind of image too! http://www.flickr.com/groups/59319377@N00/