Interactive 3D city model of Adelaide

[Fabrice]

Check out this interactive 3D model of Adelaide.

http://aero3dpro.com.au/adelaide_CBD

[monotonehell]

That is some super impressive image mapping there. All of those surfaces, from so many angles, and in such detail. Even little details like the fire engine at the fire station.

I'm blown away.

[Nort]

If you haven't, I recommend checking out Google Earth. The modelling of Adelaide has got really good on it.

edit: Also, in a quite cool move the government released a creative commons licensed model of the cbd last year: https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/3d-model

[Fabrice]

Thanks for the feedback.
3D city models in Google earth are getting better but they need to find a right compromise between resolution and loading time. The geometry is simpler and the resolution of the imagery used is around 8cm. We know that very well

[MelBrandle]

That's really impressive! I wonder how often the company that is streaming this needs to remodel or reimage the city in order for it to be up to date. It'll be interesting for them to keep all these images in storage over time to show how the city has changed over the years. A morphing 3D image of Adelaide - that would really be something wouldn't it?

[Ser Noit of Loit]

That's really impressive! I wonder how often the company that is streaming this needs to remodel or reimage the city in order for it to be up to date. It'll be interesting for them to keep all these images in storage over time to show how the city has changed over the years. A morphing 3D image of Adelaide - that would really be something wouldn't it?

That's something I've been strongly wishing to see. Imagine watching the city centre and the whole urban area grow and expand outwards and (sort of) upwards. From the 70s to now the CBD will be a lot wider and significantly taller making it a lot more dense. Imagine if each building was colour coded according to year or decade.

[slenderman]

Hi Ser Noit of Loit. I come bearing some news I hope will please you. In return, I want to ask what your username means. It's been intriguing me.

Anyway, I happened to be playing around with Sketchup some more lately, building my own little 3D Adelaide, but you gave me the idea to colour code the buildings corresponding to the decade in which they were completed, which I thought would be cool as a way of determining the relative level of high rise development in each decade.

So I present to you (and anyone else who might be interested) a 3D model of the high rise buildings in the Adelaide CBD. The map I've used contains only the "Square Mile", so no InterContinental or University buildings unfortunately. I'm fairly sure this model contains every building over the height of 35m (based on Emporis data) in this area, although it's possible I've missed some. Please note that it only contains buildings either complete or under construction, so no proposed developments here (I don't want to get too carried away with things that don't exist yet). Also note that I've used mainly plain boxes, though I put a bit more effort into some of the building shapes, such as Westpac House, Telstra House and the Myer Centre.

You can probably deduce the colour code yourself, but here it is:
Red: Pre-1960s
Pink: 1960s
Orange: 1970s
Yellow: 1980s
Green: 1990s
Blue: 2000s
Purple: 2010s

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(Yes Mono, I'm well aware that these photos are oversized, but the quality plummeted when I tried to resize them).

By my count (could be wrong as I have a hard time counting things like these), for each decade, we got this many highrises:
Pre-1960s: 16 (15 if you don't count the cathedral)
1960s: 15
1970s: 21
1980s: 22 (doesn't include the Intercontinental/ASER stuff)
1990s: 11 (12 if you count the cathedral, I didn't)
2000s: 18
2010s: 35 so far (I counted the Crowne Plaza and West Franklin as two buildings, but didn't include any of the Medical precinct buildings)

As you can see, just like Japan, the 1990s were the lost decade for Adelaide with the economic disaster of the time. In particular, we had a dark period from 1993 to 1999 (exclusive) where we had zero buildings on this map completed, unless you count the 36m tower for St Francis Xavier Cathedral, which I believe was constructed in 1996. In terms of densifying the CBD, these results suggest that this decade has been our best ever. As you can see, the skyline has spread out to the west and south, although we still haven't had as much of the height we got in the 1980s, though that may completely change if Realm/Adelaidean/Sofitel/the rest can go ahead.

I'm actually quite surprised how comprehensively the 2010s wins this analysis, although I suppose there's probably plenty of ~30m density fillers built in the '70s and '80s lurking around that aren't included in this map.

[monotonehell]

(Yes Mono, I'm well aware that these photos are oversized, but the quality plummeted when I tried to resize them).

lol

[Ser Noit of Loit]

Hi Ser Noit of Loit. I come bearing some news I hope will please you. In return, I want to ask what your username means. It's been intriguing me.

Anyway, I happened to be playing around with Sketchup some more lately, building my own little 3D Adelaide, but you gave me the idea to colour code the buildings corresponding to the decade in which they were completed, which I thought would be cool as a way of determining the relative level of high rise development in each decade.

So I present to you (and anyone else who might be interested) a 3D model of the high rise buildings in the Adelaide CBD. The map I've used contains only the "Square Mile", so no InterContinental or University buildings unfortunately. I'm fairly sure this model contains every building over the height of 35m (based on Emporis data) in this area, although it's possible I've missed some. Please note that it only contains buildings either complete or under construction, so no proposed developments here (I don't want to get too carried away with things that don't exist yet). Also note that I've used mainly plain boxes, though I put a bit more effort into some of the building shapes, such as Westpac House, Telstra House and the Myer Centre.

That's awesome and just the sort of thing I wanted to see. As I thought it kind of expands out in a ring, except for buildings which replace older ones like 115 KWS. Older images of Adelaide show the city as becoming abruptly flat, perhaps only up to three stories at most, once you get just a little out from the CBD centre. The influx of multi storey buildings, mostly around Light Square, Hindmarsh Square and south King William Street have quite a lot to change the look of the city.

My username? Purely patriotic towards our good founder Colonel Light, of course!