3D Model

Version 3 of my city model is now available to download.

To create the model I used SketchUp, the 3D modelling software used to model towns and cities for Google Earth. It's quite fun to play around with and best of all it's completely free.

Instructions

Download and install the most recent version of SketchUp for Windows or Mac, depending on your system:

SketchUp

Download the 3D model of the city:

3D model

Then open the model up with SketchUp.

You can navigate around the city by selecting the white hand icon, holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse. Holding down the middle mouse button lets you rotate. And the mouse wheel lets you zoom in and out. Or if you don't have a mouse wheel, you can use the blue arrow and the magnifying glass either side of the white hand.

Also, the model was starting to cause some slow down issues, so I've hidden several elements in layers. Click on 'window' on the top menu, select 'layers', and then use the tick boxes to make these elements visible or invisible. If your computer's struggling, try unticking 'rest of the city.' If it's more powerful, tick them all.

Model Evolution

Version 1 was rather abstract, with streets coloured by use (e.g. yellow for houses) and no distinction between buildings.

Version 2 was constructed in much the same way, but the streets were texture mapped so that they looked more like actual streets.

Version 3 is composed of around 50 individual buildings, copied and pasted 1000s of times.

Every time I wanted to add more detail in the past, I would first level the city, and then rebuild it after splitting the city into smaller elements that repeated more often, to lessen the workload.

But now when I want to add more detail in the future, I only have to work on 50 or so buildings.

So if anyone out there is crazy enough to try modelling their own city design, I would strongly recommend ignoring the low polygon/texture map advice for Google Earth modellers and going straight to the individual building stage. Also, components and the default (white) colour are your friends.

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