Digital Urban

Shrinking Cities

2008-07-20T11:59:00.003+01:00

Moving Datas from 1kilo on Vimeo.

The movie above comes from shrinkingcities.com - they state that '
Shrinking cities are a cultural challenge to us. In the Shrinking Cities project, architects, academics and artists investigate recent developments in Detroit, Ivanovo, Manchester / Liverpool and Halle / Leipzig - and make suggestions'.

Their world map is interesting:

World Map of Shrinking Cities from 1kilo on Vimeo.

With the recent move, a least in the UK, to brownfield site urban flats and apartment developments we would argue that perhaps British cities are growing in population rather than shrinking (?).

Shrinking cities is a project (2002-2008) of the Federal Cultural Foundation, under the direction of Philipp Oswalt (Berlin) in co-operation with the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the magazine archplus.

For more information see shrinkingcities.com.

High Definition Visualisation from Panoramas: London Churches

2008-07-19T11:42:00.007+01:00

Panoramic London Churches - HD from digitalurban on Vimeo.

The movie above was created back in 2006 as a test for using standard panoramic images as a way to create high definition movies. Now thanks to the video sharing service Vimeo it is possible to embed high quality output in our posts.

The movie features The Chapel of Peter and St Paul by Wren, Southwark Cathedral, The Painted Hall by Wren and St Giles in the Field. Any thoughts on the technique are as ever welcomed...

Music: Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor.

Earth Render: Map Pins

2008-07-18T16:51:00.008+01:00

We dont normally upload test/concept images but we thought we would give it a go with our render of Earth. Made for a quick introduction slide to lead into a talk on geotagging we are not sure it works - perhaps its a bit twee?

Anyhow if you have comments good or bad let us know, it was made midway through doing a paper and we thought it was ok eye candy for a future animation to use in KeyNote.

Geographical: The Real SimCity

2008-07-18T09:55:00.004+01:00

This months issue of Geographical includes a feature whereby Olivia Edward talks to the British urban geographers (including us) who are immersing themselves in virtual cities to gain a greater insight into the workings of our real-life conurbations.

The article is based around screenshots and interviews from ourselves as well as Mark Birkin from the University of Leeds.

We haven't had chance to get hold of a copy yet but it should be available in all good newsagents, or online.

CloudMade - The Isle of Man Mapped

2008-07-17T12:44:00.006+01:00

Proving that you don't need huge resources, trucks or high end hardware the guys from CloudMade - Steve Coast and Nick Black along with long time OpenStreetMap contributor, Andy Robinson have been mapping the Isle of Man.

Using a GPS, three bikes and a car all of the roads, rivers, train-tracks and airports as well as a huge number of the car parks,restaurants, schools and other amenities of the Isle of Man have been mapped in little under a week.

Best of all the map is being made available via the OpenStreetMap project free of charge. The total cost of project was under £4000 although to be honest most of that is the cost of the laptops, a complete breakdown of equipment is below:

6 x GPS Units (£360)
3 x Digital Cameras (£450)
3 x Laptops (£2100)
10s x rechargeable batteries (£15)
100s x elastic bands (£2)

Its a different world compared to the large mapping companies, but if we wanted a map making we know who we would call - see http://www.cloudmade.com/ for full details.

You can take a sneak preview of the map before it makes its way onto OpenStreetMap.

London Teenage Murders From 2007 to Date, Knife Assaults and Regeneration Areas: Mapped - A Clear Pattern Emerges

2008-07-15T12:13:00.017+01:00

The rise in knife attacks and the number of teenagers murdered has been sadly dominating the news for a while now in the UK. Data on such incidents is hard to come by as the police do not provide open access to incident locations, despite it perhaps being in the public interest.

As such it is left to the public at large to fill in the gaps - in the case of teen killings, MapMan has created a map of teenagers murdered in London since 2007. Created using Google MyMaps the list has been compiled via various websites (such as http://www.capitalradio.co.uk/article.asp?id=532062) with street names identified in related press articles and plotted on the map. Actual position within the street will not be accurate, but the street names themselves should be. Note the map relates to all murders, not just knife related incidents.

Using MapTube the map can be overlaid with other data sets, such as a map uploaded detailing assault using a knife or sharp objects extracted from all hospital admissions (2007). The map is based on data with a cause code of ICD-10 X99 (assault by sharp object) and excludes all codes that may indicate accidental injury (ICD10 – W25, W26), self inflicted (ICD10 – X78) and undetermined intent (ICD10 Y28).

Figures are directly age standardised per 100,000 population with CI’s - Actual counts were excluded in the map due to disclosure surrounding low numbers. By overlaying the two maps you begin to get a picture of the extent of knife crime and the number of murders in London.

Each link is clickable for more information. Such data should really be available via either the http://www.london.gov.uk/ or http://www.met.police.uk/ along with other locations of crime in the city. It may be alarming to see such incidents mapped but this is the city we live in and the public should have a right to view exact locations of crime in their neighbourhoods.

If you then use MapTube to add in Regeneration Areas within London a clear pattern between teenage murders and deprivation emerges:

You can view the map direct via MapTube. The map can also be viewed against other indicators such as ethnic population, barriers to housing or any of the other 47 maps relating to London. KML maps will be fully integrated into the site over the next few weeks.

The work also ties in with our near real-time geographic survey in association with BBC Look East on Anti Social Behavior (using the same system as our BBC Radio 4 Credit Crunch Map) we will have more on that in future posts.

CityEngine: New Movies

2008-07-15T11:48:00.005+01:00

Procedural Inc. is a company specialising in software for the efficient creation of 3D buildings and cities. With it's flagship product, the CityEngine the company is gearing up for release with some new movies:

Preview of the CityEngine:

Future City Generation:

Transformations in Architectural Design

The software is aimed at the efficient creation of virtual 3D worlds and digital sets with targeted markets including interactive and filmed entertainment, architecture, simulation, archaeology and the 3D Internet.

Hopefully we will have a 'hands on' view of the software soon, it looks like being one the most exciting releases for city building for some time.

See http://www.procedural.com/ for full details.

GPS iPhone Movie

2008-07-15T10:22:00.006+01:00

testing the gps on the iPhone from tonie on Vimeo.
Embedded above is a movie by tonie putting the iPhone GPS functionality thought its paces while driving. Of note is the slightly jumpy update and towards the end of the clip a slight loss of location. Although to be fair if the application was tied to the street network it would of probably performed better.

We find it slightly bizarre that Apple would release a phone with a dedicated GPS yet with no options to log your location, see the speed you are traveling or export paths to Google Maps. Ironically the movie was filmed with a Nokia N95 that has all this functionally built in...

Engadget has more on the iPhones current lack of dedicated tracking functions.

3D Earth Sample Visualisation: Sci-Fi Channel

2008-07-13T11:30:00.002+01:00

3D Earth Work from Justin Lee on Vimeo.

Not much information on this one but its included as its simply worth seeing. Uploaded by Justin Lee to Vimeo it shows a sample of some work he is doing for the Sci-Fi Channel. Justin's channel is well worth keeping an eye on.

iPhone 2.0 Excellent Location Tracking without GPS (Old iPhone)

2008-07-12T10:28:00.005+01:00

One of the big draws of the new iPhone for us was its GPS capability and one that we are now questioning having put the new 2.0 update though its paces on an old non-GPS iPhone.

The good news is that all iPhones now do near real-time location tracking either with or without GPS. In our test our old iPhone, loaded with the 2.0 update software, updated our location approximately every 10 seconds on our trip back on the 168 to Camden Town, London, yesterday evening.

Locating via triangulation of the phone mast network and local wifi points the results were surprising accurate and certainly accurate enough for any of the new location aware apps in the iTunes store.

We were surprised to see our location updating as we moved on Google Maps to such an extent that without any actual navigation software available for the new GPS enabled iPhone we would question the need to upgrade based on a desire for locational awareness.

The accuracy of the location is determined by the density of the phone masts, so it works well in the city. We are now able to geotag our photographs, watch our location update and view services around us, all without the new iPhone.

The new 2.0 software upgrade is well worth it, for the location services alone.

CamSpace: Gesture Control for Google Earth/Maps/Virtual Earth?

2008-07-12T10:00:00.003+01:00

The video below details CamSpace a program that quickly and easily allows the user to set up object tracking to emulate mouse or joystick movement/clicks. This means that any PC (Mac and Linux coming soon) application or game could be controlled simply by using gestures.

It has a lot of potential for geographical applications, especially in exhibition/demo spaces. In some ways its similar to our previous work with Atlas Gloves and Google Earth using two ping pong balls and a LED light - movie below:

All you need is a webcam, see CamSpace for full details.

Googles Spy Camera: The Daily Mail on Google Street View

2008-07-11T12:27:00.007+01:00

We predicted a front page story from one of the UK's newspapers regarding Google capturing Street View images and sure enough today's Daily Mail delivers.

The Mail states that Street View will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say the site is a 'burglar's charter' that makes it easy for criminals to check out potential victims.

Its actually an interesting article and not surprising since it makes for good copy, although perhaps more interesting are the comments posted in the online version.

You can read the full story via the Daily Mail site.

Our view? They are only photographing the street - which is not illegal - faces will be blurred out and it'll be a really useful service when it launches. They are also not the first, various firms have been capturing 360 degree panoramic images for local councils for years.

Although of note - a project we helped out with capturing Camden in London was removed due to complaints of peoples houses being viewable on the Internet so interesting times ahead.

iPhone GPS First Movie

2008-07-11T08:10:00.004+01:00

Engadget have posted a movie of the new iPhones GPS in use. Embedded below it perhaps confirms the conceans of the small antenna and reduced accuracy/update times:

There have been rumors abound of why various companies were restricted from producing a turn by turn GPS application for the iPhone, the reason could be that the unit simply cant keep up with realtime locations?

If the iPhone is only capable of simpler location based services that would be big disappointment, looking at the applications now available in the iTunes stores the signs do not look good.

We would test it out ourselves but O2 in the UK has made such a botch of upgrading that it could be few weeks before we are able to get hold of a handset.

See Engadget for full 'unboxing' and a first look.

Google Labs Lively Inauspicious Start

2008-07-10T15:24:00.005+01:00

Google Labs new beta virtual world system 'Lively' is off to an inauspicious start if users experiences and the types of rooms being created are any guide. The most popular room at the moment is showing sex movies with other sex rooms not far behind in terms of popularity - something which is slightly disconcerting with the 'cartoon' look of the avatars.

A number of users are also unable to join rooms and the keyboard navigation keys seem to be mapped back to front. We know it's a beta but at the moment it doesn't seem to be in the same league as other Google products.

Once the 'joining rooms' issue is fixed we will have some more thoughts...

http://www.lively.com/rooms

Low Cost Site Survey: FlyCamOne2 + Remote Control Plane

2008-07-10T10:37:00.008+01:00

An aerial view of a site is often essential for 3d model construction, camera tracking footage or just for general survey purposes. Remote surveying is often expensive (see 25,000 Euro Microdrone) but with a little imagination you could achieve similar results with a couple of $99 FlyCamOne 2's and a GPS attached to a remote control helicopter or plane.

The FlyCamOne records video at 640x480 resolution and stills at 1280x1024 - high enough to build a 3d model from. Aikonaazi's video below provides an insight to the possibilities with a flight around Portland Bill lighthouse:

Chrisbofh has used the FlyCam in a test flight over over Chesil Beach on the 21st - still images are captured every 4 seconds:

See also Chris's brushless easy star flying up to 1000ft over Weymouth:

If we weren't Central London based we would be out now buying a remote control plane and a couple of FlyCamOne2's, who said geography cant be fun...

Show Reel 2008: Lastpixel

2008-07-09T16:51:00.004+01:00

LASTPIXEL showreel 2008 from Ben Morris on Vimeo.

Lastpixel's showreel above illustrates 22 projects the company completed in-house. Setup in 2004 the company has worked on over 500 projects to date. Its a solid showreel and we especially like the opening visualisation.

See http://www.lastpixel.com.au for more info...

Google Enters the Metaverse: Lively by Google Labs

2008-07-09T10:47:00.004+01:00

We all knew it was coming but never the less the step by Google into the world currently dominated by Second Life is an intriguing move.

Known as 'Lively' the video below provides a way of introduction:

The system includes the ability to build your own rooms and places ready for customising via a range of 3d objects. At the moment there is no mention of importing your own objects but we would expect a link with Google SketchUp and the 3D Warehouse to be made opening up a wealth of possibilities for visualisation.

Our second movie provides more of an insight, illustrating the sluniverse.com crew having their first meet up in Lively:

There is no word on a Mac friendly version yet, Lively requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox. Available free of charge it has the potential to give other virtual world systems a run for their money. We expect a level of social flocking over the next few months over to Lively and it'll be interesting to see how it develops.

We will have more on Lively in future posts.

See http://www.lively.com/ for full details.

A Summers Day in London: High Definition Timelapse

2008-07-08T18:19:00.003+01:00

The movie above is entitled 'London in Summer' we have increased our capture rate to 1 frame every 5 seconds and self encoded the movie to .flv format while we wait for our Vimeo allowance to update.

Moving to 5 frames per second allows for a smoother timelapse although it notably increases processing time to create the movie. Things to watch out for are a rainbow after the clearance of one of the many showers and planes across the London skyline just after dusk.

Music by Ghostlight via mp3unsigned.com

You can download a high definition (1280x720 pixel) version in .mov format (150Mb).

Location Based Augmented Reality for Android: Enkin

2008-07-08T09:06:00.005+01:00

Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.

We have always been perplexed by companies building 3D cities for mobile devices as by nature of the device you are already in the city when using it and thus can just use your 'eyes' to look around. The same goes for maps, maps in cities are all well and good for getting from A-B but they fall down when you just want to know more local information at a building level.

What is needed then is a way to augment reality in real time - to geotag buildings and locations based on what you are seeing. This is exactly what the guys from Enkin have come up with running on Android (the open source mobile platform from Google).

The movie above explains all and in short we haven't been more excited about a location based service for a long time, the idea is genius. The system combines GPS, orientation sensors, 3D graphics, live video, several web services, and a novel user interface into an intuitive and light navigation system for mobile devices.

The often talked about augmented reality looks like it just got real...

See http://www.enkin.net/ for more info.

Virtuality vs. Reality: From 3D Flythourgh to Real Life

2008-07-07T19:41:00.000+01:00

Virtuality vs. Reality from Vaclav Chaloupka on Vimeo.

The house above is owned by Vaclav Chaloupka and where as often once developments are built the 3D plans are disregarded, Vaclav has recorded and embedded the completed 'real world' version into his movie.

Its impressive how well reality fits to the 3D model right down to the fixtures and fittings. The model was made using Blender and Vaclav has rather helpfully posted a series of 3 videos detailing how you can model the house yourself.

Mini New York Model Animation

2008-07-07T15:04:00.000+01:00

New York Animation from Sander Wit on Vimeo.

Sander got bored with his homework and than distracted by Blender resulting in the above animation of New York. The movie was created using use one stock photo and Blender 2.46.

We are not sure what impresses us the most, the model from a single photograph or the fact that it was made between doing his homework...

Wiki Architecture: Open Source Architecture - The White House

2008-07-07T12:08:00.007+01:00

Open Source White House Redux (HD) from arch1k on Vimeo.
The movies above and below are part of a collaboration project investigating ways in which the open source can influence architectural design. The project aims to collectively develop an alternate building to the current White House in Washington D.C. Perhaps more importantly, this is an Architectural free-for-all where everyone can collaborate, borrow, and contribute, regardless of one's abilities.

Open Source White House Redux from arch1k on Vimeo.

The project states that

Analogously, the concept of Source Code is readily found in the everyday practice of architecture in forms of drawings, agendas, documentations, ideas, specifications, and material libraries. However, none of the above, with the seldom exception of ‘ideas’, are freely redistributable, publicized, or allow for criticism and input akin to what an open-source model offers. The architectural practice, today, is skewed towards personal benefit and gratification of individual architects. Thus, the laws protect creative property, on one hand, but are constricting and oppose collaborative creativity that could contribute more rapidly to architectural theory and practice.

Moreover, architectural practice could benefit greatly from the transparency of process that open-source module employs. If the design processes, planning, and the general production sequence from design to construction were observable, architects would take on pedagogical role as well. That is especially important in architecture, where training is not a straight forward process.

It an interesting concept and one that we applaud - take a look at http://arch1k.wikidot.com/ for full details and how to take part.

Also take a look at our posts on Wikitecture - a similar idea taking place in Second Life.

Architectural Show Reels: Squint/Opera

2008-07-07T11:00:00.004+01:00

Squint/Opera Showreel from squintopera on Vimeo.
Squint/Opera's Showreel combines humour and narration with cutting-edge design and imaginative illustrative techniques. Using a visual language, the company channels and translates the creative investigations of the architectural team into a medium that everyone, from the schoolchild to the Mayor, can understand.

The above write up is direct from the companies 'marketing speak' we while we don't normally include such text in blog posts the quality of Squint/Opera's work justifies it..

For more information and to view more work take a look at squintopera.com

CITIES XL: City Building Simulation

2008-07-07T00:19:00.000+01:00

The trailer below is for CITIES XL - a new city game from the makers of City Life, Monte Cristo. The faq provides an insight into the game:

CITIES XL™ is a brand new take on the city-building genre. CITIES XL™ will expand upon all the features that make city builders fun - such as shaping cities, managing the economy and caring for the needs of city inhabitants. Players can also take their game online and interact with thousands of others on massive persistent planets.

Of note for anyone interested in city modelling is a 10 minute movie on their 'buildings' section of the website providing a walkthrough of how the development team create the cities 3d models.

CITIES XL is scheduled for release first quarter of 2009 with online play based around the development of a new planet allowing community members to:

Build cities in a virtual world populated by other subscribers, allowing the creation of a living online community;

Trade with others, specialize a city in specific activities such as tourism, entertainment, business development, recycling management and more;

Visit other cities and host events for others to attend and enjoy;

Cooperatively create a booming metropolis teeming with life and businesses;

Participate in competitions and enjoy a calendar of events that will keep you coming back to your planet;

Share your in-game experience with friends through a companion community website.

We for one are looking forward to it, you can keep up to date with the developments and have your say on features of the game at the CITIES XL website.

Thanks to eAi for mentioning the game in a comment to our post on SimCity Creator: 3D Flythrough of Cities...

Sydney Skyline Timelapse - Shortest Day

2008-07-06T16:05:00.002+01:00

the shortest day in sydney from filip on Vimeo.

Filip captured the above timelapse on one of the shortest days of the year - the movie was captured from 6:27am to 5:51pm, with an image captured every 30s using a Nikon D300 and a Tamron 17-50mm lens.

The movie is simply stunning created using a digital camera and a lot of patience - Filip stood by the camera the whole time...