Help build the UofA in Google Earth

[newfangled]

For those who don't know, if you are in Google Earth looking at Edmonton, and if you have the 3d Buildings Layer turned on then you'll see something that looks like this:




Those buildings are created by users in a program called Sketchup and then uploaded into Google's 3d Warehouse.

The University is interested in getting a model of the UofA campus into Google Earth, and since I've done a lot of the models of Edmonton they asked me for some advice. I thought it would be worth seeing how much interest there was in the community - online, students, alumni, Edmontonians-at-large - in putting together a team of volunteers to model the campus.

So, is anyone interested?

There would be two phases:

Pictures

When the temperature is a little bit warmer and the sun is a little bit higher in the sky we'll hopefully have lots of volunteer photographers to swarm out over the campus. That would probably happen in late March or early April, depending on the weather. Pretty much any recent camera would work (camera-phones might not be the greatest, but anything over about 5MP should be fine). For anyone with a nice big zoom lens we should hopefully get roof access, so in addition to taking pictures of the buildings there could be an opportunity to get some nice skyline shots from an unusual perspective.

3d Modeling

After we have all the photos we'll sort them all by building, post them on a UofA FTP site, and then it will be time to start on the models. That is basically as easy as:

1)


2)


3)


4)


It might seem daunting, but there is a lot of good information out there, and it can all be done using free software. If you think you might be interested I'd suggest taking a quick browse through some of these helpful links:

Tutorial Videos
Modeling a City
More tips for Modeling
Sketchup for Dummies
A how-to for St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow (it's crazy)

(and you don't have to wait for a UofA group to be put together - you could get started on your house, office or school right now!)

Google also has a new program called Building Maker which simplifies the process, but it causes you to lose detail. It could be useful for some of the buildings on campus, so I'm trying to find out if or when it will launch for Edmonton.

Right now I'm trying to gauge interest. Eventually there would be a facebook page, twitter account, blog, etc to keep people informed. And we'd probably start with an orientation meeting to talk about the plan and go over some tips, hints and best practices.

If you think you might be interested in helping (either as a photographer, or as a modeler, or hopefully as both) please send me an email at inthreedimensions at gmail and I'll add you to the mailing list. And if you know of anyone else who might be interested please pass this on to them too.

[Kevin_foster]

Ill help

I just would need pictures of the campus buildings.... could we use this forum to collect?

[newfangled]

Thanks Kevin.

It's honestly a lot easier to use pictures that are taken for the specific purpose of modeling rather than just using pictures that people have hanging around)

There's a whole list of things that make it easier - straight on and as perspectiveless as possible, no trees, minimal people, evenish lighting on all 4 sides, even just getting shots of all 4 sides...

So that's why I'll hopefully get a flickmeet type thing going in the spring.

[Channing]

I'd be in for doing some photos. I've got the DSLR, lenses, quality tripod, etc. to get some quality shots.

[Kevin_foster]

Sounds good so far.

Newfangled, what tips can you give as far as accurately building a model - dimension wise (height, width, etc).

For example, the butterdome, how would one know how high the concrete foundation is, then the stretch of walls, and the dimensions of the architectural features?

I've always just eyed it...

[newfangled]

^ I make stuff up a lot.

One tool that is really helpful though is Match Photo. It's talked about starting on page 16 of the pdf at this link or in this video.

You need a building with at least one 90degree corner, and one wall that has a known length. For the butterdome you'd probably start with the south elevation along 87ave side which looks to be about 355'.

You'd take a photo from 87ave facing either NE or NW - just something that gives you a good view of the whole south elevation, along with bits of either the east or west elevation.

Throw that picture into Match Photo, set up the perspective, and trace over top. That gives you a rough massing of the building. Then you scale that massing so that the south side equals 355', and you're basically good. All of the vertical dimensions will now be accurate-ish.

You can use Match Photo to make the models directly, but I usually just use it as a reference. "Match Photo says that the 1st floor is 12.189' tall...I think I'll go with 12'."

[Kevin_foster]

ok, I was hoping to avoid getting out laser guides

[newfangled]

^ I'm also hoping the U will have some elevations, or at least floor-to-floor heights which would make things easier. When I talked to them they weren't sure what's available.

(I was really kindof hoping they'd done some LiDAR mapping, but alas that was not the case.)

[leendert]

The U of A has a document server with lots of architectural drawings. It may take quite a bit of effort to get reasonable measurements out of some of these documents, since some of them are scans of really old drawings.

I have seen sections and plans of the various phys-ed buildings and figuring out the relative elevations between them requires a lot of conversion and calculations (the connection between this group of buildings is a mess - hopefully the UofA will adequately fund the PAW centre so that these buildings will be connected in a more open and intuitive fashion).

[Mycroft]

Does anyone know when Google Building Maker is going to include Edmonton?..it makes this whole process so much faster and easier (although your models look way better)

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html

[newfangled]

^ I was down in Boulder last year to meet Google's sketchup team, and to preview building maker (yay me! although there were lots of other modelers there too). So I know the team down there, and I've sent a few emails, but haven't gotten any responses yet. Guess I'll have to try harder.

My thoughts on it are this, though:

• They won't take photos during the winter. So if they haven't done flyby's yet (and Edmonton isn't likely that high on their priorities), then they couldn't happen until Juneish? For a release in Q3 or Q4 at the earliest?
  
• Buildmaker would be kindof crappy for the U, because of how tightly packed everything thing is, how short everything generally is, and because of all the trees. Birdseye view on bing.com/maps gives a good sense of what the imagery challenges would be.
  
• The U has a fair number of "special" buildings - historic, Capital "M" Modern, or just weird. Even with decent imagery, probably 50% of the campus will have to be done the long way.
  
• For volunteers, I think sketchup is more interesting just because it's multiuse? There are already a fair number of sketchup users out there. Or if you're going to learn a program, it might as well be sketchup because then you can use it to do your house, or build a stardestroyer, or whatever. I dunno?

So I'd love to use Buildingmaker for boring stuff like Windsor parkade and whatnot. And it would be a great tool to get the general massing for every building. But I figure we've got 6 months or maybe 18 months until it shows up, and there are a lot of buildings that will need a human touch regardless.

Kevin and Channing, feel like dropping an email to inthreedimensions so I don't forget you?

[newfangled]

For anyone who is interested in helping out with modeling the UofA - either as a modeler (it's not that hard, honestly), or as a photographer - there's a new facebook page to centralize information:

UofA3d on Facebook

And a kick-off meeting is tentatively planned for the evening of Tuesday, March 30 (event info will be updated on Facebook).

Photos will happen sometime after that depending on weather and schedules, and once we have those we can start on the actual modeling.