Full post with movies after the break below:

No. 5: Growing the Tube Network

The clip was produced in 3D Max, purely as a way to explore the rapid creation of transport networks for visualisation. It was easy to make – simply import a PDF of a transport network into a package such as illustrator and save as .dwg. This allows you to import into 3D Max and then the lines can be converted to ‘tubes’ – the network can be built up in under an hours work. Making the stations and naming the lines took a little more time but the result is interesting. The render has been used on the cover of a couple of books, been hung on the walls in the London Transport Museum and is the subject of future development with real network flows.

No. 4: Reactor and Particles in the City

Number 4 is a slight cheat as it contains two movies, firstly Reactor:

Secondly, Particles:

The movies were produced as part of exploring how 3D Max can be used for agent based modelling, we wrote a Complete tutorial on Reactor and Bouncing Balls in the City. The work is currently being imported into the Unity engine as part of our work on NeISS. Talking of which:

No. 3: Unity

Unity is our current engine of choice, simply for its ease of use for importing models and producing quality output that can run either online, via iPhones or on an iPad. As part of our work on Agent Based Models we are working on an exhibition space, below is the room layout:

Second up is an early prototype:

We are heading back to Unity in the next few months with an aim to create a complete exhibition space.

No. 2: Geography and Cities in Second Life

We used to have some land in Second Life as part of the Nature Publishing Groups presence. It allowed us to develop various urban, geographic and agent based models within the virtual environment.

The long term aim is to develop the techniques and move them into OpenSim, sadly all the above work is now lost in the ether….


No. 1: Step Inside Worlds

Number one is a look back at work before the days of Google Street View when the creation of panoramas was a work of art. Created from 36 photographs we took our panoramic images and put them into 3D space, allowing the camera to pan around the nodal point, our first example shows its age a bit but its still one of our favourites:

We developed the concept further with ‘step inside worlds’, allowing a series of panoramas to be embedded within a ‘holding’ scene and presents a looping movie suitable for large displays. The movie is just a concept but perhaps one that would work in a marketing suite or on display:

The clip was developed in 3D Max, but any 3D package would do, its simply a case of moving the camera around inside of spheres.

There are of course others, we have over 150 movies produced covering
all aspects of our work. We hope a few of them have provided some inspiration over the years or via our tutorials we have managed to show some useful tips and techniques.

The post Digital Urban: Top Five Favourites appeared first on Digital Urban.

Full post with movies after the break below:

No. 5: Growing the Tube Network

The clip was produced in 3D Max, purely as a way to explore the rapid creation of transport networks for visualisation. It was easy to make – simply import a PDF of a transport network into a package such as illustrator and save as .dwg. This allows you to import into 3D Max and then the lines can be converted to ‘tubes’ – the network can be built up in under an hours work. Making the stations and naming the lines took a little more time but the result is interesting. The render has been used on the cover of a couple of books, been hung on the walls in the London Transport Museum and is the subject of future development with real network flows.

No. 4: Reactor and Particles in the City

Number 4 is a slight cheat as it contains two movies, firstly Reactor:

Secondly, Particles:

The movies were produced as part of exploring how 3D Max can be used for agent based modelling, we wrote a Complete tutorial on Reactor and Bouncing Balls in the City. The work is currently being imported into the Unity engine as part of our work on NeISS. Talking of which:

No. 3: Unity

Unity is our current engine of choice, simply for its ease of use for importing models and producing quality output that can run either online, via iPhones or on an iPad. As part of our work on Agent Based Models we are working on an exhibition space, below is the room layout:

Second up is an early prototype:

We are heading back to Unity in the next few months with an aim to create a complete exhibition space.

No. 2: Geography and Cities in Second Life

We used to have some land in Second Life as part of the Nature Publishing Groups presence. It allowed us to develop various urban, geographic and agent based models within the virtual environment.

The long term aim is to develop the techniques and move them into OpenSim, sadly all the above work is now lost in the ether….


No. 1: Step Inside Worlds

Number one is a look back at work before the days of Google Street View when the creation of panoramas was a work of art. Created from 36 photographs we took our panoramic images and put them into 3D space, allowing the camera to pan around the nodal point, our first example shows its age a bit but its still one of our favourites:

We developed the concept further with ‘step inside worlds’, allowing a series of panoramas to be embedded within a ‘holding’ scene and presents a looping movie suitable for large displays. The movie is just a concept but perhaps one that would work in a marketing suite or on display:

The clip was developed in 3D Max, but any 3D package would do, its simply a case of moving the camera around inside of spheres.

There are of course others, we have over 150 movies produced covering
all aspects of our work. We hope a few of them have provided some inspiration over the years or via our tutorials we have managed to show some useful tips and techniques.

The post Digital Urban: Top Five Favourites appeared first on Digital Urban.

The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.

Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.

Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.

The post Come in Neogeography Your Time is Up appeared first on Digital Urban.

The movie above is a 3 minute clip of our work to date in Second Life. We have been working on Second Nature Island on land kindly donated by the Nature Publishing Group to explore how ‘classic geography and cities’ can be imported into Second Life. A high definition version can be viewed via Vimeo by clicking on the HD link in the movie player.

Music is by the Tartan Rascals

See Nature.com for more information on our work and other ‘scientists’ working in Second Life.

As ever any thoughts, comments or questions are welcome…

The post Geography in Second Life appeared first on Digital Urban.

The movie above is a 3 minute clip of our work to date in Second Life. We have been working on Second Nature Island on land kindly donated by the Nature Publishing Group to explore how ‘classic geography and cities’ can be imported into Second Life. A high definition version can be viewed via Vimeo by clicking on the HD link in the movie player.

Music is by the Tartan Rascals

See Nature.com for more information on our work and other ‘scientists’ working in Second Life.

As ever any thoughts, comments or questions are welcome…

The post Geography in Second Life appeared first on Digital Urban.

To be honest this cannot be true can it? The YouTube movie below shows Miss Teen South Carolina answering the question why she thinks 1/5th of Americans can’t find the US on a map:

Before anyone asks – we were not trawling YouTube for Miss America Videos, the link comes courtesy of the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog.

Amazingly the YouTube movie has been viewed 3.5 million times to date – if the movie was geographically tagged and embedded into Google Maps maybe that would help the statistics…

The post Geographic Awareness – 1 in 5 Cannot find the US on a Map? appeared first on Digital Urban.

To be honest this cannot be true can it? The YouTube movie below shows Miss Teen South Carolina answering the question why she thinks 1/5th of Americans can’t find the US on a map:

Before anyone asks – we were not trawling YouTube for Miss America Videos, the link comes courtesy of the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog.

Amazingly the YouTube movie has been viewed 3.5 million times to date – if the movie was geographically tagged and embedded into Google Maps maybe that would help the statistics…

The post Geographic Awareness – 1 in 5 Cannot find the US on a Map? appeared first on Digital Urban.