EricMBloggie

Here’s an easy way to use Google Maps, Photoshop, and 3D Studio Max to generate a pretty good site plan for architectural visualization.

First, find your site in Google Maps. I’ll pick a random part of Philadelphia. Take a screen shot, using the ‘Print Screen / SysRq” button on your keyboard, which is above the number pad. Do you really not know how to take a screen shot? And you’re doing visualization work? Come on, now.

In Photoshop, make a new document, and paste the screenshot in there. Crop it.

Tyler, Chris, and Tom can see their house from here! They aren’t going to read this!

Next, in Photoshop, do this: Select –> Color Range.

Use the eye dropper to select the areas where houses should be. Then click the Eyedropper + (Plus) tool in the Color Range dialog, and do the grass area and parts like that dark grey on the bottom right side of my image.

Manually fix up any gross areas.

Notice how poorly that’s selected. Fix that.

a) Click the ‘Paths’ tab. (It’s in the same box as your Layers.) b) Make a work path from selection.

You’ll notice, it’s imperfect.  Try some different tolerances with your Make Work Path.  Undo your previous click, then this time when you click the Make Work Path button (b), hold down the “ALT” key at the same time.  Try a tolerance of 2.  You can try anywhere from .05 to 10.

From the Photoshop Help Center:

Tolerance values can range from 0.5 to 10 pixels and determine how sensitive the Make Work Path command is to slight changes in the selection shape. The higher the tolerance value, the fewer the anchor points used to draw the path and the smoother the path. If the path is used as a clipping path and you have problems printing the image, use a higher tolerance value.

Okay, you have your path.  Time to get it out of Photoshop and into 3D Studio Max.

In Photoshop.  File –> Export –> Paths to Illustrator.  Save your .ai file.

In Max.  File –> Import –> Select your file (.ai at the bottom!) –> Merge Objects with Current Scene –> Single Object

The simplest thing to do right now would be to go to put an Extrude Modifier on this, and call it a day.  We might as well complicate it a bit.  Let’s make this prettier.

Step 1: Clean up.

There are some stray vertices.  Select ‘Vertex’ under your Editable Spline.  Delete the little guys that are just floating around randomly.

Step 2: Resize.

You might want this to actually be to scale.  If you know the size of one of the blocks, or an area on the map from point to point, make a box that size, and scale the map up to meet it.  What I did was much more clever than that.  I went to Google Maps, right clicked on one point –> Directions from here.  Then on another point –> Directions to here.  It was 0.2 miles.  A little basic math reveals that’s 1056 feet.  I made a box that size, and scaled my map up to match it.  Nice!

Now go to the Tools in Max, and do a Reset XForm.

Collapse your stack to an Editable Spline.  Now you have a properly scaled site map.

Step 3: Sidewalks & Grass.

In these instructions, I’m assuming you know how to use Max reasonably well.  This stuff is too basic to provide a million little thumbnails.  If you don’t get something here, it’s definately in the Max manual.

Add an Extrude modifier to your Editable spline, the height of a curb, about 5″.

Add an Edit Poly modifier.  Select the Polygon Sub-object.

(We’re in the Edit Poly options now…)

Down in the Polygon Properties, Do a Select ID for 1.  That should grab all of the top polygons of your map.  If it doesn’t, select one of the top polygons and identify it’s ID.  Select that ID.

Under Edit Polygons, do an Inset.  My sidewalks are 5′ wide.  I don’t know if that’s right, but I’m sticking to it.

If you want to differentiate the height of your grass from the sidewalk, Extrude it either down or up, depending on your preference.

Step 4: Materials.

You need to set your Material IDs for a Multi/Sub-Object material.  In your Edit Poly modifier, under Polygon Properties…

(Make sure that ‘Clear Selection’ is checked.)

Select ID 1.  It should select your Grass and Sidewalk.  Click Shrink.  Now, only your Grass is selected.  Set that as Material 5, which is an empty material ID.

Select ID 1 again.  Notice how the sides of your sidewalk aren’t in that ID?  Click one of those sides.  Mine are ID 3.  Select ID 3, and make it ID 1.

Now, when you Select ID 1, the whole sidewalk should be in that ID.

Click a polygon on the bottom part of the sidewalk.  Mine are Material ID 2.  Select ID 2.

Delete these Polygons, you’ll never see them.  They’re a waste of resources.

At this point, I would consolidate my materials to just ID 1 and ID 2.  If you’ve come this far, you can do this.

In your material editor, assign a Multi/Sub-Object with 2 Materials to your site plan.  Throw on your favorite concrete and grass materials.

 

That’s it.  Put down a ground plane, map it with asphalt for a road.  Slammo, instant site plan.  Well, not instant, but close enough.