[Udo_Schmitz]

Wow. I'm a graphic designer myself and always wanted to try this for my neighborhood. Do you really go and look at each building and draw it? And do I have to be slightly insane to do this or will I become slightly insane doing this?

[znor]

hehe, insane is a good word to describe this one. I´m not sure of the long term consequences but there were long nights, weeks, months and years spent on this one.

It´s even a tad bit more than you guessed. First: Make photocopies of ground plans, sections and drawings of each side of appr.600 houses at the city planning office.(appr.3.000 a2 sheets of paper if I remember correctly) Sit down for one summer with two friends, model those buildings and play a lot of ping pong in between to keep mentally stable. Then charter a plane, persuade the air control to get you permission to fly 10 circles over a busy city center to photograph almost each house from the same angle (for colors and details such as flagpoles, trampolines etc.). Then walk the streets to photograph missing parts.

After all of that: Decide on an angle, start trying to find a suitable style, do test blocks, then draw 186 a3 drawings, watercolor each one using the aerial photos for accurate colors and then finally assembling the map, color grading, bunch of dodging and burning, street names, et voilá, you got yourself a map!

No problem really......

[Udo_Schmitz]

OK. Well … I suddenly decided to start with a very small area. And maybe todays Map services (Apples Flyover, Ex-Nokias Here) can stand in for the plane chartering. And I think I'll draw digital. znor, If you are still around: do you happen to know how graphic designers approached this in a time before computers? I remember seeing maps like this as a kid and assume none back then did 3D-modeling?

[znor]

Yes, there are many ways of doing this. Some of todays services like StreetView would have helped a lot. But do keep in mind that if you create the data from scratch yourself you´ll have much better control over things and a better understanding of how to portray the data in the best possible manner for each given project. We went the ultra detail-perverted way on this one :) By using our own data I also know for a fact I won´t run into any licensing or copyright issues, and apart from that I´m able to use the 3d models for all sorts of stuff. If you need some further tips you´re free to send me an email at [e-mail]

[myth_buster]

Incredible effort! Kudos on keeping it updated. Has Google Earth helped in easing out your workflow and associated costs?

[znor]

No, I don´t like using their data for anything cause of possible copyright issues. I´ve got a much more detailed, game engine based 3d model of Iceland now than they do anyway ;)