200 Milestone

Hi folks a quick update on the project as it stands at the moment.  We have now passed the 200 models mark.  The update last week added the modelling work being carried out on Church Street, Society Street and New Row.  Also New Row Presbyterian Church featured as the first religious building in the collection. 

I also have taken images for all the areas within the town centre that have not been covered by Google Streetview.  Am currently working on the Town Hall, this is a prominent building and will help complete this phase of the work. 

Things should quiet down again in the next few months.  I have started back to uni again and with coursework it will be difficult to upload even a handful of models each week.

Model Your Town Competition

Sorry folks I know it has been a couple of weeks since the last update.  I have been switching my PC from Windows Vista to Windows 7 and performing a few other hardware upgrades as well.  But the project is still full steam ahead.  I am pleased to announce that the project is now entered into Google Earth's Model Your Town Competition 2012.  I will know by march if the project makes it into the final 12.  More details on the competition can be found here http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2011/11/announcing-2012-google-model-your-town.html

At the weekend I spent an hour going around Coleraine town centre to take a few images around the pedestrian areas that have not been covered by Street View.  Am currently working mainly on Church Street and Society Street. I took an image of the store front of Peacocks fashion store on Church Street.  Since doing this, modelling the building and uploading to the 3D Warehouse an announcement has been made that Peacocks retail has gone into administration threatening store closures throughout Northern Ireland.  If this is the case my model maybe out of date exceptionally quickly.  Just proving how fluid the real world is compared to taking a 3D snapshot of how a building, town or city looks at a single point in time.

As an update here is an Image of Moores department store which is currently available in the 3D Warehouse awaiting approval to be uploaded to Google Earth.

Thanks again.

AJ

Happy new year

I realise that there has not been an update on this since July 2011 and I apologise to any who has tried keeping up to date with it.  The number of models live on Google Earth/Maps has exceeded my expectations towards the end of last summer by going beyond my targets.  The number of models sits now at 171.  So what have I been doing since then?  Well my university course has demanded much of my time over the last few months and I have been only able to create a few models between assignments.  

The Railway road area has been completed with a few model updates along the way.  Also now complete is Brook Street.  I have begun work on the Lodge Road, Hanover Place, Park Street and Milburn Road.  Circular Road, Long Commons and Ballycastle Road have yet to be completed but much of the initial work has been carried out.  

I have a few weeks off now and hope to get about another 20 live on Google Earth by February.  When the days get a little longer and the temperatures warm up I am going to go out into Coleraine town centre and get some images as these important streets within the town are not covered by Google’s Streetview and are difficult to model without some primary collected images.  

Some models to look out for in the next few weeks are Coleraine Showgrounds,  Coleraine Tescos and more housing along the Circular Road.  Until then keep an eye on Belfast in Google Earth for the work being carried out by the Belfast 3D Project.

I promise to post more regular updates...bit of a new year’s resolution. 

AJ

Update finally

Well everyone we have finally had an update from Google. It was the largest number of my models accepted from the prject so far, we now have 30 on Google maps for Coleraine with another 29 models awaiting to be approved. Railway Road is almost complete and Brook Street is starting to take shape, I will be concentrating on this area next along with Circular Road.

I took an image of how the models are looking on Google Earth last night, this includes the buildings I have made that have not been accepted yet.

No update

Sorry for the absence of updates. I was away working last week, though I had left a number of models to be reviewed by Google to be approved/rejected. However there was no update by Google at all. So we are reaching the end of another week and I suspect an update will occur within the next 48 hours. I have a number of new models on the 3D Warehouse, those include the Leisure Centre on Railway Road and a few models on Brook Street I am hoping to get approved. Fingers Crossed for a big update before the end of the week folks.

More Street View Coverage?

So those of you who are familiar with my work will know that I use Street View to photo texture my models. In the Coleraine area the coverage of the town centre is quite bad compared to the rest of the town. Amazingly a few streets on the areas I have been working on in the last few weeks have been uploaded, they we're not covered before. This is after I have gone into the field and taken my own photographs.

Thanks Google! You have made my work much easier.

AJ

First post.

Hey everyone. As you can see this is the first post to the Coleraine 3D Project. I hope you are as excited as I am. This blog will be following my creations of buildings in the Coleraine area as I make them on Google Sketchup 8. There will be weekly updates on Fridays as Google seem to do most of their uploading to Google Earth at this time.

Just a little bit of background on myself. I am AJ, am 24  from the Coleraine area and a geography graduate from University of Ulster. I have recently been accepted for an MSc in Geographic Information Systems. Until I start back to my studies in September I have decided to spend a bit of my free time Geo-modeling. It can only be good practice for what is to come, and I can’t wait to see the challenges and what can be unlocked in my hometown by this project.

What I hope to create is an extensive landscape of 3D buildings on Google Earth/Maps to highlight the beauty of the Coleraine area. I will start off with Coleraine town centre and get as much work done as possible in this area.  I will then move onto the town centres of Portrush and Portstewart to complete the major centres in the Triangle Area, and then begin working on the suburbs. To date I have 6 models now live on Google Earth and a further 18 models awaiting approval. I hope to get his number to 100 by the end of August. The 6 models are all located on Railway Road in Coleraine. You can view these by looking at the Railway Road area in Coleraine on Google Earth or alternatively on your browser if you have the Earth Plugin on Google Maps installed.

If you do not have Google Earth there is a download link on the side bar, and the plugin for Google Maps on your browser can be downloaded from the top right hand corner when using Google Maps and clicking Earth on the Satellite/Map/Earth toggle links.

So why do it? Well when you use Google Earth you can see the natural landscape in 3D. When it first went live there were 3D buildings in select major cities such as New York. Years later with the help of volunteers creating models on Sketchup there are a wide array of smaller cities and in some cases towns being Geo-modeled. I feel that Coleraine as a university town and having so many tourists and visitors to it and the area each year should be represented in this way. Google also have a list of reasons listed here http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/citiesin3d/

So come along for the journey as I bring my hometown to life in the online community.

AJ