Floor plans of real buildings - where? and related questions

Vargas

1.) If I want to do a model of a real building e.g. the local primary school, the town hall or some hotel, where or how do I get the "measurements" or the floorplans? Is there a copyright-issue?

2.) If I want to put the finished model on Google Earth... How do I get the exact coordinates? With my own GSM-thingybob or what?

3.) I would also like to do my own house (I've got the floorplans and all) - so no prob, but I would also like to model my entire plot of land (1,9 acres) including all structures (shed, wells, coop..) and landscape features. So where or how do I get the elevation contour lines (isohypses) - part of my land ( behind the house) is quite steep, so if I want to do a realistic representation of my plot, I'd have to include that as well

PS: btw: Is there any known download problem with Google earth at the moment? I can't seem to be able to download it (tried a few times today) all I get is a blank page with some code on the top end...

Gaieus

Well, let's start with the GE download link: http://earth.google.com/tour/thanks-win4.html.
It gives me the right link.

As for your questions:

It's hard to tell where and how precise floorplans you can acquire (and who lets you do the real things by the floorplan and who doesn't can vary from person to person and from country to country).
Mostly however you do not model very detailed for GE since it will cause download and streaming problems (see this help center article about file sizes).
As for exact geo-location, you only need to get the GE snapshot and it will deal with the rest (it contains the georeference). See this help center article about how to place your model into GE.
At #6 of this article you will find that you cannot only get the image from GE but also the terrain (how precise this is may be another question), This will (hopefully) roughly be something like your land.
If it isn't exactly like that, you can build some mesh above the GE Terrain (but never below) although that can be a little tricky.
My suggestion is not to place plant components into your GE model because it will overweigh it.
So it seems that everything now depends on whether you can download GE.

Have fun;

Vargas

first of all: Thanks a lot for the link, it worked! really don't know, what was wrong all day
I'll check out the links you gave; thanks for those

as to 3.) The terrain I want to do won't be for GE, but for just for myself. So I guess I'll put all those trees in there as well ... sometime...

and now I wonder, if GE really shows an image of my house??? Actually I can't even imagine, that it will show an image of my village... I just don't think that that corner of Austria is very well covered. Well I'll knowby tomorrow.
Thanks for your help so far!

Ross Macintosh

Hi Vargas -- Welcome to the forums. I just looked up Payerbach on Google Earth. Unfortunately the resolution for your area is extremely poor. It is as bad as I've seen anywhere on Google Earth.

If you want to model a local building accurately and you need plans then approaching the building owner is likely the best and most appropriate way. If they have plans and you ask nicely and seem trustworthy they might lend them to you. In general floor plans are not publicly available. On the internet you might be able to track down plans & elevations of only the most famous of buildings -- and very few are available. The ones online only tend to those buildings that have academic interest. (When I watch the tv show '24' I always get a kick out of seeing how Cloe can call up to her computer the floor plans of any building! I really doubt any government database has that information. They never came to measure my house!).

Regards, Ross

azuby

Hm, also hier in Deutschland würde ich bei öffentlichen Gebäuden einfach

Baubehörde
Landesarchiv
Kreisarchiv
Kommunalarchiv
Stadtarchiv
Gemeindearchiv
Bibliotheken
abfragen. Aber Architekten haben da sicherlich genauere Tipps.

Die Geländeeinteilung - falls ihr das auch braucht - hat man u. a. auf Flurkarten, die gibt es beim Katasteramt. Und dann gibt es ja noch die topographischen Daten (ganz interessant für bergige Regionen, weil ja da Häuser manchmal auch "halb im Hang" stehen mit ihrer untersten Etage). Da kommen mir dann sog. DGM-Dateien in den Sinn (Digitale Geländemodelle).

azuby

Gaieus

@azuby said:

Bad English? PM me, correct me.

azuby

You're right, but there are so much special words I don't know. Maybe:

State archiv
County archiv
City archiv
libraries (oh yes)

azuby

Gaieus

Well, I did understand your German explanation (after all I live in "Fünfkirchen" or what)

"archives"

WEB

@vargas said:

how do I get the elevation contour lines

You will probably have to hire a surveyor to ensure accuracy.

If you have an optical level or transit, time, and a few friends, you might be able to do your own survey. Create a grid, determine the elevation of each point on the grid, and estimate where the actual contours are between points. The steeper the slopes, the greater the change in elevation, and the more obstacles to clear lines of sight, though, the more difficult it becomes; and it soon becomes impossible for an amateur.

@unknownuser said:

how do I get the "measurements" or the floorplans?

Wouldn't it be great if thorough drawings of the masters' works were readily available for study?

Vargas

thanks for all the helping abswers

I'll let you know, where I'll get

Gaieus

As for the site survey, you can also just collect a bunch of (even possibly "random") data just make sure to measure the x, y and z values correctly (nowadays this is quite easy with those laser survey stations).

Then there is Didier's Cloud.rb plugin which will generate a mesh from these point data. If you want to have contour lines appear you can insert a bunch of horizontal planes into your model and intersect the mesh with these planes (although I suppose you'd need the contour lines to create the mesh and not vice versa).

Didier's plugin is extremely easy to use (and very useful) - I regularly use it to create accurate meshes of sites.

Daniel

Vargas, if the building your wanting to model is masonry, measuring the exterior - including the grade line - is easy, count the bricks.