How we work:

To complete a 3d city model 3idee needs two things: photographs and a digital 2d drawing of the city.

For the Utrecht Station Area project we hired Skypictures to photograph the city of Utrecht, making sure every building was photographed from all four wind directions. The photographs were taken at a 45 to 55 degree angle so they showed the facades and the rooftops.
3idee has developed a working pipeline that can handle city models many times bigger than the Utrecht Station Area project.

Photograph of Utrecht	Photograph of Utrecht

The photographs were taken on a cloudy but very clear day. This allows us to use our 3d models in several existing virtual worlds such as; Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Virtuocity, etc.. We use sunlight simulation software to incorporate the shadows in the 3d models to match the underlying photographs.
 

Sunlight matching in Google Earth.	Sunlight matching in Google Earth.

 

Skyline of Utrecht.