2022-12-06-Detroit-Central-Station

Detroit’s Grand Central Station in a 3D Model.

I flew the drone around the building that is being remodeled by Ford Motor Co for use as office space.

Obviously I did not realize how high the building was and did not get the drone high enough to get good photos of the top floors and roof!

I have edited by flight plan map and hopefully will capture the missing details when the weather is good enough to fly again.

I made a second attempt at this. Did a lot better, but looks like I was still to close to the roof to get good results. I think I was at and altitude of 350′ so not a lot more I can go.

Uniroyal Tire 3D

Just playing around with making 3D images. This is a large “Tire” near the I-94 interstate in Allen Park Michigan. It is created by skinning an old Ferris Wheel.

I made another flight plan and flew it again. I think doing the “Map” on top of the orbit gave me more detail in the top of the tire.

Fan - That's all, just a fan.

Lidar Scan from iPhone of Fan

It’s sometimes pretty amazing what a “simple” phone can do these days. I have gone from using a very clunky and unreliable “Bag Phone” (where you had to pull over on an overpass, stick an antenna to the roof of the car and *hope* you would get a signal.) to a (almost) super computer held in your hand.

Anyway I digress. My new iPhone 14 can use Lidar to scan an object and create a 3D model of it. So simple….

Ypsilanti Water Tower in 3D

I have been working a week to try and get some type of 3D image on the web site. FINALLY was able to get a plugin that worked for me.

I also had to update to Blender 3.4 to allow me to export to .glb and .glft formats. I was intentionally using older 2.7 version since that is what was supposed to work with the QGIS2Threejs plugin for QGIS.

I think some of my problem was in getting the image aligned on the correct planes. It just did not show up if it isn’t aligned just right.

Now to try a few of the others I have. Maybe even get better at cutting off loose parts and things that do not add to the image.

The Ypsilanti Michigan Water Tower

Not your typical design, but it does catch your eye. Constructed in 1890 and built of stone.

Address: 303 N Summit St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Architect: William R. Coats
Opened: 1890
Height: 147?
Area: 13,070 ft²
Added to NRHP: October 26, 1981
NRHP Reference Number: 81000318 (National Register of Historic Places)

The Water Tower looking to the West.
The observation cupola on top of the water tower.

On the very top, and probably unknown to most people, there appears to be viewing windows. Probably is a pretty nice view from there!

I think Ypsilanti designers were way, way, ahead of their time! It certainly appears Blue Origin copied their design!

Finally, just playing around with looking at things differently. Start with DJI Mini 2 photos (about 150 of them) crunch them together in WebODM. While you can get a lot of outputs, this one is the “Dense Point Cloud”.

I have been trying to add it in the “raw” state to allow viewers to manipulate the file itself, but it requires a lot more skill than I have!

So I settled for making a video using OBS Studio, then putting it into Davinci Resolve, then finally running it through Hand Brake! While there are a lot of holes caused by overhanging areas, I was happy for a first attempt.