Modeling Buildings in Complex Urban Planning Context

[stmlandplan]

[font:Arial]I am looking for some guidance on how best to approach the modeling of numerous 4-10 story buildings in a the context of an urban planning model. Specifically, I want to create 'drive-by' animations of a site that has 10-15 different buildings along a 2,000 ft streatch of roadway. I would like the buildings to be more detailed than the Massing Model tool allows but when I try to create each building with walls, windows and awnings I quickly get very large objects (memory wise) that take forever to animate (not to mention create). My questions are:

1 - are there any sources for building models that others have created that I could easily adapt and if so what are some good sources?

2 - has anyone applied images to solids to create photorealistic buildngs for this purpose

3 - are image props the way to go

I have done a fair amount modeling of the building masses sufficient to illustrate in 3D the various land uses by color but before I embark on a strategy to add the visual detail for the animations I wanted to see what others are doing. Any guidance is appreciated.

Vector Works 2008 SP3 (Build 88670)ck in touch - Landmark, Renderworks

Windows XP Pro - SP3

NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M

Intel ® Core 2 Duo CPU

2.53 GHz, 2.99 GB RAM[/font][/font]

[Jonathan Pickup]

image props for each side of the building might work, but you would have to photograph each side of each building without distortion, maybe using a shift lens on your camera

use animationworks (ww.ozcad.com.au) for the movie, it will give you more control of the cameras, and paths, and you can transition between cameras

[stmlandplan]

I had also thought about creating various building modules and tileing them to create various 'building composites' since most conventional builings are easily represented by 20' width modules with 12' & 16' heights. This would let me control the lighting better but I'm afraid my file sizes would grow quickly.

Edited May 31, 2010 by stmlandplan

[Horst M.]

The big part of the work for the apporach you discribe under Point 2 will be to get the Fotos of the buildings, and to prepare them to be used as Wallpapers for your the massing models. I think with the image prop idea its the same.

Once you have the Fotos cut, rectified, stiched and colorcorrected that they visually fit together in your Scene, you can use the new Add Decal Tool to place the Fotos on the surfaces of your Models.

I've recetly tried that for a Venue with a complex Steel Structure, that is very detailed and I'm still not where I want to be.

I thought of using simple extrudes/Walls and place Fotos of the real Wall Sections onto these Extrudes, but the work that goes in the Preparation of the Fotos is imense, and needs someone who is used to Photoshop. (...lets say more used than I'm! :-).

A nice example for this Kind of work can be found here:

http://www.maxon.net/en/news/singleview-default/article/3d-digital-model-of-hamburg-germany.html

Edited May 31, 2010 by Horst M.

[Benson Shaw]

Don't know if this applies well to this situation, but Photoshop (and probably some other image editors) has a tool to modify a keystoned/forshortened view into a "straight on" view. Say, a street level view up a building facade. Here are a couple examples of the process found by searching "photoshop keystone":

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/keystoning/page-2.php

http://www.underwaterphotography.com/PhotoShop/PhotoShop/help.html

There is also a Google ap which makes those 3d buildings on Google Earth. There may be a way to capture the model for your use from that. Maybe the buildings you need are already done by others.

Demo:

http://techie-buzz.com/google/google-introduces-building-maker-to-google-earth.html

-B

[stmlandplan]

Thanks for the great ideas. I will definately check out Animationworks. Does it crunch the scenes any faster or is that a limitation of my hardware?

I am also intrigued by the possiblility of capturing the 3D models off of GoogleEarth. That would seem to provide a huge source of quick building blocks to use. I checked the 3D Building Repository and the files are .kmz or .dae ??? Does anyone know more about how it might be possible to capture these buildings?

As far as the Photochop tricks go I will have to practice the keystoning tool and wallpapering my massing models. I suspect my Photoshop 6 won't have that tool.

Thanks to all replys.

[Matt Panzer]

Hi stmlandplan,

I use the perspective crop in PhotoShop to take out perspective distortion and I've found it to be the fastest and most accurate by far. Hopefully your version of PhotoShop has this option. The feature has been there for several versions.

A quick search on youtube shows the process.

HTH,

[stmlandplan]

Hello PanzerCAD,

Thanks for the suggestion. My PS 6 has a 'skew' tool that pretty much lets me torture any photo and should work for this task ok. I've had no luck capturing 3D Sketch-up models since all that I get when importing is the 3D polygon with no textures. Any ideas?

Edited June 3, 2010 by stmlandplan

[Matt Panzer]

stmlandplan,

While the skew tool will work, it take a lot more eyeballing and guesswork. I think skewing and keystone stretch the image without taking into account foreshortening. The perspective crop method does take foreshortening into account. Try placing a crop in your version of PS and see if there's a "perspective" checkbox.

As far as importing SketchUp models, I haven't done this much...

[stmlandplan]

My version 6 does have the perspective option. I'll have to practice with that one. Thanks

[Matt Panzer]

No problem!

The only trick with the perspective crop is, once you get it aligned to a square objects in the photo, drag the center grips of the crop to include as much of the rest of the photo you want. Dragging the center grips keep the crop sides constrained to the perspective so you won't mess up the perspective dragging them.