Thursday 2 September 2010

3D Map


Part of the problem with creating a map is how to give life to it. Linear roads and rectangular building shapes are how graphic designers decide how to render a town centre perhaps because their tools, vector drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator, are best used in this way. It's so easy to take a screen shot from Google Maps then plot lines around it. I've walked around the centre to get a feel for the vertical height to see how that affects people and the shops below. It's great to see people resting in the sun in the centre of Broadway or out-side one of the cafes at the front of the Market. I've rendered the town centre in 3D to get a feeling for the scale. Unlike many towns and cities it has no overpowering tall building so light gets through either on one side of the street or the other and, where the buildings have been sandblasted, the light reflects from the palish sandy-grey stonework. Most are Victorian apart from the shops around the Arndale Centre so the townscape has a unity (in scale) and if you look up you can still see Victorian rooftops and chimneys and be aware of where you are by the church spires. I would also like to study the topography but this may not be possible but the thought is there.

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