NYC in 3D incl. elevations

[radii]

We are looking around to find a source that could supply ALL of NYC incl. most of the five borroughs as an accurate 3D massing model and elevations ( as 2D drawings ) of the major landmark buildings.

I know this sounds crazy, but I'm not joking.

I know of one company that sells good NYC massing models by the square kilometer. Total price for Manhatten would be around $120'000.- I think, but no elevations

 

If anybody has any leads or just wants to tell me that this is nuts and doomed from the start, please respond

[Sketchrender]

I know i am stabbing in the dark.

This crowd might be worth ringing to see if they have it yet.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/newsfeed.asp?nid=3682

 

 

The other thought was the games industry, did one of the playstation games not do a most of it for a hit man game or grand theft auto?

 

As i said ...i am guessing here.

 

phil

[radii]

Or I could call WETA in NZ. Didn't they do most of NYC for the King Kong movie ?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Or I could call WETA in NZ. Didn't they do most of NYC for the King Kong movie ?

 

about half way down, WETA talks about the process they used to model NY.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/article1_CW.asp

[Ernest Burden III]

Why do you need this? There is so much that can be done with camera tracking that I wonder what would require you to re-create the built world when the built world is sitting right here.

 

I know a number of companies, and even one gang of ametuers, who have modeleds parts, if not most, of New York City. But I don't think anyone has taken it to the detail level of full facade elevations. If you use Google earth, it now loads texture maps that have been made for major landmark buildings, and MicroSoft's version of GE does the same thing.

 

The problem is always the extent of the model. None of them are going to go on forever, so at some point you are still looking at set extension, photo-montage or similar. Why not start there instead?

[radii]

We would not need the data to render any kind of CG images, but for more of a "physical" purpose. Accurate building heights ( within a few feet or even plus minus one floor ) plus Autocad elevations of the landmark buildings would make us quite happy for now

A fairly accurate plan view of Manhatten ( very heavy Autocad file ) with all building footprints and streets, has somehow found it's way into our office. It's a start. Now we just need an Autocad-script wizard and all building heights to automatically generate a massing model over the weekend:D

I hear that SOM has got some script heavyweights. Then again, they probably already own what we are looking for ...

[CCBOX]

Very interesting plan. Have you ever done anything on Switzerland? I'd be interested in the city of Winterthur, particularly the Buelrain Gymnasium.

Hope you can help

Thanks

[Ernest Burden III]

A fairly accurate plan view of Manhatten ( very heavy Autocad file ) with all building footprints and streets, has somehow found it's way into our office. It's a start...

I hear that SOM has got some script heavyweights. Then again, they probably already own what we are looking for ...

 

SOM probably created what has 'found its way' into your office. You might want to be sure of ownership. Maybe 10 years ago there was a Manhattan model (up to 65th street anyway) that 'found its way' into the public via a file left open on a workstation in the computer lab of Pratt with no-one having signed in on that machine. Humm... That model had no identifying data as to where it came from, but certain buildings were blue and those were all SOM projects.

 

What would you need this level of data for?

[radii]

OK, I give up;)

The drawing did originate at SOMs office and make it to ours via a mutual client. It does look however, that it was somehow generated by converting aerial footage to vector data. A rounded sidewalk corner for example, sometimes consists of 100 vertices/elements and not an arc with 3 vertices.

It's a fun dwg to look at, until you actually have to work with it and clean up that big mess.

I can't really talk about what specifically we would need all this data for as the project is confidential, but from what I can tell, there are quite a few companies ready, willing and able to do the work and gather this mountain of information as it really hasn't been done before. Asking price would of course be in the 100'000s of dollars range. Most of them though, think that point-cloud data is the latest rage. It's just not vector data though man ...

[Ernest Burden III]

there are quite a few companies ready, willing and able to do the work and gather this mountain of information as it really hasn't been done before. Asking price would of course be in the 100'000s of dollars range.

 

Well, good luck. I would think many hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably need to find another zero somewhere.