Historical city reconstruction workflow

Question

I'm doing some historical research and I would like to visualize a situation from the past.

I have several questions, I would like to make this topic a source for tips & hints when recreating e.g. cities.

I've seen that it is possible to create a surface from Google Earth with Sketchup. Is something similar possible with Blender? I need correct geo. reference and heights.
Via Solid Edge ST6 I can easily use a measurement tool when creating my model. (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI8QE5A2fWY ) Is something similar available for Blender? Some models I need on my map need to have correct sizes.
In general, how do you best organize a large scene?
at the beginning I just want to add basic shapes (e.g. cubes) to show the buildings. If I later want to update these buildings or add more detail to an existing building. What is the best way to work?

You have asked three different question here, stack exchange's format is 1 question per question. You can find information about your organization question here. — David, Dec 19 '14 at 16:23
sometimes it is better to combine them, like on stackoverflow — juFo, Dec 20 '14 at 10:25

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:57

5

You could try to export from OpenStreetMap
How to model effectively using exact measurements?
It depends on what you want to achieve (should be another question) you could use layers and groups.
For buildings in the background adding textures should be sufficient for close up I would refine the geometry and add more materials. Related: Trying to create a script that makes roofs on selected boxes

Imported .osm after extrusion (Note that exporting a whole city leads to 2GB files which can't be loaded in Blender)

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For some cities 360° images are available from Google street view / maps view which help to elaborate on building details and estimate their age.

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edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:57

Community

answered Dec 17 '14 at 21:07

stacker

Does OSM export terrain height? BTW, I was about to link the exact same tutorial! :) – PGmath Dec 17 '14 at 22:56
@PGmath OSM has no height information one must extrude the mesh manually. – stacker Dec 18 '14 at 07:14
I really would need the terrain height, any other idea? – juFo Dec 18 '14 at 09:11
@juFo You could add the topography layer to google maps e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0637852,-118.8153084,16z/data=!5m1!1e4 – stacker Dec 18 '14 at 09:54
@stacker 360cities.net is another good spot for city panoramas. – PGmath Dec 18 '14 at 15:52
@stacker hmm how exactly can I combine that? (tutorial?) :s – juFo Dec 18 '14 at 20:39
@juFo You can't combine that, just ideas on where you could get additional information about building heights, age, facade design, architecturally patterns, materials etc. – stacker Dec 18 '14 at 20:57
I wonder if this still works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-OfeO7H0Mk hmmm – juFo Dec 20 '14 at 10:30
@juFo great idea, check it out and report here – stacker Dec 20 '14 at 10:32
@stacker i'm looking at this tutorial now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2mCCZvlLjs I now have GeoTiff format but not sure if blender can import this. (really new to this) – juFo Dec 20 '14 at 10:50

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