Photo Texture for Bldg Elevation

[ErichR]

Is it possible to use a photo of a building elevation as a wall texture (a la SketchUp)?

[CipesDesign]

Yes. But it might take some serious fiddling to get it properly oriented. The biggest problem you might run into has to with the 'distortion' of the camera's view and the fact that your VW's model will need to exactly match this for the texture to actually cover the whole thing without any slop over.

You could try it on a small scale thing to play around and see if you think it's worthwhile.

FYI, I find it much easier to take digital photos of each particular building texture (eg: the siding, roofing, stone facade, etc) and then use each of them to make a texture which then gets applied to those parts of the building where it belongs. That way I can spin my model around to whatever view I want and all the texture appear (more or less) accurate.

[ErichR]

Upon looking into this myself, I found it indeed possible to manipulate a photo in PhotoShop so that it can be used as a wall texture. The entire photo covers the elevation. It does take time and I'm not sure the results are much better than doing the whole thing in VW. However, when an existing building elevation contains a lot of detail, you can capture all of it in a photo (sans 3D ins and outs).

[Benson Shaw]

Life imitates art (and architectural process). Haven't seen this construction site treatment in USA, yet.

-B