Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
with Google Earth, which we examine further a little later, and it is linked for a good reason -
for users to develop free content.
Creating a Visual City, one that reflects the actual built form, is a huge task and therefore
time-consuming. So far, the only groups that have been able to get close to representing
the city visually are Games companies such as Sony and more recently Microsoft. Games
such as 'The Getaway 3' on the Playstation 3 represent the cutting edge in city visualization.
The Getaway originally appeared on the PlayStation 2 as a three-dimensional rendition of
London covering approximately 10 square miles (16 square kilometres). The team behind
the model produced a wire frame model based on a photographic survey of London and
then projected the resulting textures onto the geometry.
The results of such developments are impressive but the costs are typically in order of tens
of millions of dollars to produce, while the models are also only of use for gaming. They
cannot be easily ported into contexts either where geographical analysis is required or where
the public at large can interact with them, largely due to the nature of their construction.
Therefore to reduce cost, Google released their SketchUp software so the users-at-large
could produce the city themselves, block by block, building by building. Of note is the latest
version of SketchUp which, at the time of writing, allows users to import and calibrate their
own photography, directly modelling over the imagery. Although not as accurate as the
traditional photogrammetry, it does allow rapid modelling and the widespread adoption of
photorealistic content. Figure 9.2 illustrates a streetscape modelled in less than a day using
SketchUp. The image is shown without textures to illustrate how architectural detail can be
added to the model quickly and easily.
The release of Google SketchUp has in turn led to the development of the Google three-
dimensional Warehouse, an online repository which is directly linked with the SketchUp
program. Currently there are 252 user submitted buildings in London, ranging from land-
marks to people's houses. Buildings are uploaded to the warehouse automatically from the
programme, creating a quick and easy way to populate the city. This of course leads to
duplication and worries about quality, ruling it out for real-world applications such as ar-
chitectural impact analysis or planning applications work, but it does provide a quick and
Figure 9.2
Rapid modelling using Google SketchUp
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