Virtual Earth with XBox 360 Controller

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Navigating in 3D space has always been tricky with a standard mouse. Over the years their have been various devices created to allow the move into the third dimension, more recently with the successful Space Navigator for Google Earth.

Game pads on the other hand are made for navigation and with the introduction of Windows Vista it is now possible to link the Xbox 360 controller (wireless or wired) to Microsoft's Virtual Earth.


Video: Using Xbox Controller for Live Search Maps

The movie above demonstrates how easy it suddenly is to navigate Virtual Earth, our Xbox is in the office (more on that in a future post on Gaming in the Office Environment) all we need now is the adaptor.

Denver - Most Detailed 3D City in Google Earth

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Picked up via the excellent Google Earth Blog is this flythrough of Denver with the newly released buildings - this now makes it the most texture mapped city in Google Earth:



Frank, over at the Google Earth Blog, has another post which is worth a look examining the pros's and con's of Microsoft's auto capture vs Google's custom made buildings for city visualisation.

Google's Denver is impressive but it sure doesn't scale (unless of course you have vast amount of money and a dedicated team), Microsoft, on the other hand, has invested a substantial sum in automatic capture and it seems to be paying off.

Interesting times ahead..

Send a Digital Smoke Signal on Google Maps

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MapMSG.Com is an interesting site that allows you to type in text and then email it, or view it in a web browser, as a smoke signal overlayed on Google Maps.

Its a simple but clever application that works amazingly well... to view our smoke signal form digital urban towers click the button below:

Ipod City - Digital Audio and Perception of Place - The Tube

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As we noted in our original post, our perception of urban space is based on sight, smell, sound and to some extent touch. Portable music became main stream in 1979 with the introduction of the Sony Walkman and with it came a change to the way we perceive the space around us. By filtering out the natural and man made sounds of the city we are able to immerses ourselves in a alternative reality of our choosing.



The rise of the Ipod has placed this change of perception at our fingertips and the choice of music directly affects the way we perceive the city space. In this case we are on the way to work with 'Cowgirl' by 'Underworld' on our headphones, illustrated in the movie above is the change in perception from a dull tube journey to one which is almost immersive. The mix has been kept to provide background noise as well as the audio track.

Still not quite sure whether to take this further but the change in the way we perceive the city is notable..

You can download a high res version of the movie (.wmv 76Mb)

Crytek Realtime Engine for Architecture Visualisation

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At IMAGINA in Monaco our eyes were drawn over to the IMAGTP stand showing the results of their partnership with Crytek. Using the new Crytek 'CryEngine 2' it is possible to run real-time shadow analysis and lighting simulations.

The two movies below illustrate the use of the new engine, the results and aim are similar to our work using the Oblivion Engine - you can see examples in the Game Engines Thread - but with a $10,000 dollar price age compared to our $20.





With the increase in computing power it is now becoming possible to carry out simulations in realtime on PC's which were once limited to high end virtual reality suites. Interesting time ahead and times which move the emphasis increasingly towards photorealisic imaging and thus research on the rapid capture of city models.

After all if you have a realtime engine you need increasingly realitisic models to put in it...

Ipod City - Digital Audio and Perception of Place

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Our perception of urban space is based on sight, smell, sound and to some extent touch. Portable music became main stream in 1979 with the introduction of the Sony Walkman and with it came a change to the way we perceive the space around us. By filtering out the natural and man made sounds of the city we are able to immerses ourselves in a alternative reality of our choosing.

The rise of the Ipod has placed this change of perception at our fingertips - to illustrate this we recorded a movie with the ipod playing on our way out of work (see below):



The resulting movie is an insight into how the choice of music changes our view of the urban environment. In our case it is almost immersing yourself in a real-time MTV world as we consume the urban environment accompanied by the audio track...

Google Maps Image Cutter Software Released

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CASA is proud to announce the release of the Image Cutter software for Google Maps. Written by Richard Milton, as part of the GeoVue project, Image Cutter is an application designed to take any image or a digital photo and cut it into tiles which are subsequently displayed on a Google Map. Using this tool, large images can be published on the web in a format that allow the user to pan and zoom using the standard Google Maps interface - as illustrated in the working example below.



Although publishing large digital photos is the most obvious application, this technique can be used for annotated maps of an area that are not to scale e.g. directions for how to get to the office.

Download version 1.0

Dumpr your Images

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If you have looked at the DigitalUrban Flickr group recently you may of noticed the above picture. It was created using the 'Museum' feature at Dumpr's new Beta service. If you have a Flickr account you simply point Dumpr to the image and chose your required modification. A gimmick? Of course but an interesting one nevertheless..

Its easy to join the group, simply login or set up a Flickr account and click here to join the DigitalUrban Group.

Google Map Image Cutter Software Update

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We hope to release the Google Map Image Cutter software early this week as Open Source - we are just waiting for some good weather to capture an example 'giga pixel' image.



The software cuts up any image and places it within the Google Map interface, this allows a quick and simple way to view high resolution images online without any plugins (click and drag the example above).

We will also be writing a tutorial on capturing giga pixel images using both semi-professional DSLR cameras and your standard point and shoot rig. Its quick, easy and can create some impressive results.

The tutorial and software will be out as soon as the sun shines...

GIS Professional - Virtual London Revisited

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In this months issue of GIS Professional Magazine we explore the challenges and issues behind modelling London in both its construction, use and distribution in terms of virtual city models.

The issue (number 14) is interesting as it also covers articles on the development of virtual Los Angeles, Hamburg, Zurich and Salzburg. There are many solutions to the problem of creating digital cities, central to them all though is the need to tag information geographically to the 3d buildings. For this you need a GIS system, only then can the model be of direct use above and beyond the traditional CAD usage.

You can get a copy of GIS Professional by following the link above.

3D World Magazine - Issue 88

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The latest issue of 3D World Magazine features an article on our both our and GMJ's Virtual London models. It is interesting to view the models side by side due to the differences in their construction and ultimately in their use.

The issue also has a rather neat tutorial on creating cityscape's in Bryce 5, along with a copy of the software on the disc so its well worth a look. Issue 88 of 3D World is available in all your favorite newsagents or via the web link above.

Research or Private (?)

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IMAGINA 2007 in Monaco was a bit of a eye opener, not in terms of the latest software or advances in rendering technologies but mainly as i was in the minority as a University Researcher. It was a corporate conference, so while I'm used to talking about the latest open source tools and low cost rapid modelling techniques for virtual city construction, the majority of the talk was about render farms and high profile clients.

Now this is what interests me - I am used to working with local councils who quite frankly don't want to pay for any data and are often running hardware two or three years behind the cutting edge. As such the work is tailored to low cost, mass market output.

The majority of the work we saw showcased at IMAGINA were not architectural movies, they were marketing tools for clients paying 6 figure sums to sell apartments or offices. Now there is nothing wrong with this of course, it just makes you think that when you are working on a shoe-string budget to role a model of London out city wide how nice it would be to have the resources that high end clients bring.

Still, digitalurban is about visualising for the public and not about marketing.... are we right or should we ditch the councils and the moral high ground of public participation for 5 minute marketing movies to sell some apartments?

Of course not!

View the panorama of Monco Beach in quicktime virtual reality (2.9Mb)

3D Camera Matching - YouTube

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Browsing the web for digital urban research just before we go to bed (is that normal?).. we came across this great movie via The Arch on YouTube demonstrating some impressive 3D camera matching work:

Its worth just sitting back and watching...

Second Life 'Cut Out and Keep' Results

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A few weeks ago we published a 'cut out and keep' panorama of Second Life and happily it has been downloaded, printed and constructed by a user on Flickr known as 'joannamkay'. If you would like to make your own then take a look at the post on the 'Second Life Cut out and Keep Octahedron'.

Is there a location in Second Life you would like to 'Cut out and Keep'? If so then drop us a email via the link in the side bar and we will post it on the blog.

Kyoto Lecture - Ritsumekan Univeristy

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A big thanks to all the people who came along to the lecture in Kyoto at Ritsumekan University. As part of the lecture we captured a panorama which can be viewed in quicktime virtual reality (2.7Mb). The lighting was tricky and its not the best 'floor' patch in the world.. if we get the time we will revisit it to clean it up a bit.

Thanks go to Keiji Yano at the Department of Geography, Ritsumeikan University, Keiji has recently launched a web based version of the Virtual Kyoto project - we will have a full post on the development and the web viewer from CADCentre on this soon. Thanks also go to NinomiyaAkila from Pencil Design Studio who covered the event and has translated a number of our posts into Japanese. Thanks to Ninomiya, take a look at his site for panoramas and quicktime news - he even has a panorama of the lecture presentation from the perspective of the audience.

A high res version of the image is now available for download (.Tif 58Mb)

Tokyo Tower Panorama

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Tokyo Tower is located in Shiba Park, Minato-ku, Tokyo, completed in 1958 and standing 332.6m high it is the tallest man manmade structure in Japan. Whereas the Eiffel Tower in Paris acts as a central landmark, the Tokyo Tower is not quite as successful, despite being an almost exact copy.

The Eiffel Tower's strength as a piece of iconic architecture is underpinned by the ability to stand directly underneath the tower in a grand statement to public place. Tokyo Tower, on the other hand, has built directly under the Tower to provide entertainment facilities and shopping, this greatly distracts from the Tower's structure and thus the impact compared to the Eiffel.

View the quicktime panorama of Tokyo Tower (2Mb) - Note the shopping complex underneath the towers expanse. Its not to say we dident like it - it is a fantastic structure - its just that the pressures on landuse have taken away the chance to walk under the tower and thus have taken away the power of its architecture.

Sapporo Japan Panorama

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Furukawa Hall, Sapporo, Japan is is one of Hokkaido University's three designated Historical Buildings. Notable for its use of French Renaissance architecture, it now houses faculty members' research rooms. The panorama was taken on the way to a lecture we gave to HitatchiSoft detailing the Virtual London model and the research in general featured in this blog.


We would like to take this opportunity to thank the photographers and designers behind Panorama-Journey.com and Quicktime Brewery for coming along, both the sites are well worth a visit and feature some stunning panoramas.

View the fullscreen panorama of Sapporo, Japan (3.6Mb)

View the panorama taken at the end of the lecture (2.6Mb)

Monte-Carlo

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Whilst sitting in our hotel room, writing a lecture for IMAGINA 2007 in Monte-Carlo, we came across the following example demonstrating building in Second Life from the excellent blog TheArch:



Our hour and half lecture is entitled 'When Architecture and Games Collide' providing a run through of Half Life, Oblivion and Second Life in terms of importing digital architecture for visualisation.

Next week the blog gets back to normal with posts and news from Japan and news on the latest software and hardware at the IMAGINA show.