Oregon3D has purchased a license from Newlands & Co. Inc. for rights to the data that comprises a 3D prototype of the city of Portland, Oregon. Oregon3D plans to use the Portland City model for realtime visual simulation projects, allowing users to fly through the virtual city in realtime. Potential application areas for the Portland City model include urban development, review and planning for projected city growth, emergency management and response to natural disasters, traffic visualization and large-scale LAN video gaming.
"We are very excited about the emerging opportunities for the Portland City Model," said Bob Rosenthal, president of Oregon3D. "We have plans in place to work with Newlands & Co. and local, state and federal agencies to keep the model up-to-date and available for regional government planning projects. We also plan to work with Oregon's institutions of higher learning to apply the Portland City model for various planning exercises."
"We envision working very closely with Oregon3D," said Donald Newlands, president of Newlands & Co. Inc. "The facilities at Oregon3D are first-rate. Seeing our Portland City Model for the first time on the big screen in Oregon3D's Viz Room was an unforgettable experience. The talents at Oregon3D in training and realtime simulation are alsoa great fit with our design visualization services. Newlands & Company Inc. and Oregon3D have a common vision for developing 3D visualization technologies in the local community and beyond. We expect to develop many opportunities together for advanced training, consulting and content creation."
Complementing its current 3D curriculum, Oregon3D and Newlands & Co. are developing courses in urban simulation. Classes will teach users basic or advanced creation and integration of data for realtime visual simulation, and allow them to work with the Portland City model, enabling users to create and add their own commercial buildings and residential home models. Boasting the region's only state-of-the-art visualization center, Oregon3D's Viz Room One is suitable for public meetings where the data can be viewed on video displays, which enables users to easily interact with the Portland City model.
Presently the Portland City model extends from the Ross Island Bridge north to the Fremont Bridge, and from the West Hills to the eastside industrial area. Additional data can be imported into the Portland City model, including standard GIS data (streets, waterways, piping, etc.), demographics information and other 3D models. Oregon3D also plans to go beyond Portland and add other regions of the Northwest.
The original modeling for the Portland City model was done in AutoCAD and 3ds max. Oregon3D processes the data into formats used in realtime simulation (e.g., OpenFlight), where it is registered against a standard regional coordinate system and merged with high-resolution elevation data and aerial imagery.
Interactive tours of the Portland City model are available to the public at Oregon3D's facility in Southwest Portland in Viz Room One, which features an immersive stereoscopic display wall measuring more than12 feet wide by six feet high, and wireless head and wand tracking.
Located in Portland, Ore., Oregon3D, The Academy for Digital Arts & Sciences Inc. (www.oregon3d.com), offers professionals a collaborative learning environment for 3D animation, compositing, special vfx, editing and more. Oregon3D also provides visualization services in the fields of medical/scientific research presentations and urban simulations. In these fields it offers content support and consulting to translate static models and images into realtime displays.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
