Historical city reconstruction

[Speaker]

Hello!

For some time I have been wanting to start a hobby- 3d reconstruction of my home town - Riga. It's a more than 800 years old city with quite of interesting history. This most probably is an endeavor for a life time and at this point I have started to identify the museums, archives and some historians that would be of great help. And, as I know, the historical record is about enough to build a reasonably detailed hypothetical representation of the 15th- 17th century city.

So, seeing that there are quite a few historical building modelers here, I'd like to ask for some stories about your work. How much has your work contributed to others and to what use has it been put? What do you think is the potential of such a project? Also, it would be great find some already finished projects and sites for references of medieval architecture and lifestyle in Europe.

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[Aerilius]

I have experimented with different methods to represent reconstructions etc., like with texture baking from a highly detailed model to a Google Earth-compatible model:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=789033e037a4cb9b8a124f4737362fcd
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=e7a7633f7dc501318a124f4737362fcd

And lately with authentic material (no renders, no artificial textures), be it old damaged photos or paintings. The result looks fascinating, as all textures have once been "true", and their partly degraded quality shows how the world of the past vanishes from our memory.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=ebcf18203488662d400e67615c603f&ct=mdcc

But to cover a whole city (with any sort of models) is a lot of effort.

[Gaieus]

I am in the same "business" actually. And yes, Aerilius' works are simply stunning...
But have you seen this topic? http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=36827

Or this one, in the French subforum (you need to sign up for the French usergroup to access it here)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=25923

Anywa, I am looking forward to see some nice stuff from you.

[Speaker]

Thanks!

@aerilius said:

But to cover a whole city (with any sort of models) is a lot of effort.

"We choose to go to the moon, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
-JFK

This is the area of the old city that was enclosed by the walls.
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=210746234861547042392.0004c909f5589fe5032e3&msa=0&ll=56.947818,24.113123&spn=0.009304,0.033023

I imagine that with the advances in 3d printing there wouldn't be much of a problem to build a physical model of the city afterwards.
Once I start building the first models, I'll definitely start a WIP thread to keep you guys informed of the progress.

[serrarens]

I am currently working on modelling my town: Hummelo, the Netherlands in around 1900. I have started an blog in English about it recently: http://serrarens.nl/en/. More information on the models can be found in Dutch: http://serrarens.nl/nl/.

If you're interested I can try to upload some pictures.

My ultimate goal is not the model itself, but to relive the history as realistically as possible. For that reason, I am using the models in combination with the Unity3D engine to get a interactive environment.

I expect to be working on this for at least another year to complete.

Pascal Serrarens.