Assignment One Progress

After researching the background of the project, it was discovered that little is known about Boullée’s intentions for location. However, the subject of the building allowed the narrowing down of a suitable context. After his death Sir Issac Newton was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, where he still remains. Taking London as the base location, the project required a site that would be able to accommodate the 300m/sq cenotaph. After looking through google earth it became apparent that the area that is Hyde Park and neighbouring Kensington Gardens would be the most suitable location with enough space to place the building.

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Upon selecting that location, a high resolution texture map was created of a 2084m x 2084m area centered on the site using images stitched together after being taken from google earth. A base terrain was created in Sandbox 2 and was textured using this texture map.

By exporting the terrain from google earth into Sketchup a contour map was created by taking sections through the terrain. This assisted in modifying the terrain so that it reflected the real topography and in the placement of some of the major roads, paths, trees and buildings. Once the draft environment was ready the 3ds model was imported and placed.

Now that the draft environment has been put together it has allowed the team to see where the potential sticking points are in the modeling and associated work-flows are. The map itself appears bare until the perimeter buildings are added, which in turn are hard to place an manipulate in SandBox. This most likely calls for them to be modeled outside SandBox and imported. Trying to model the terrain accurately in SandBox can be a little tricky. Exploring the possibility of a height map might help. Accurate placement of roads and paths is also an issue. Creating a hight detail guide which can be placed as a texture map might also be considered.