Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Flore's highly modelable buildings


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Every time I drive through the village of Flore in Northamptonshire, I think I really must stop and take a photo of the old workshops on the high street. Of course, I never do as I'm on my way somewhere or heading back home. Thank goodness for Streetview which allows me to do this from the comfort of my computer.

A mix of corrugated iron with flaking paint, wood and brick, they are probably less than popular with local residents but for modellers, what a gem! I'm sure that this sort of scene could be fitted in on all sorts of model railway layouts.

If this doesn't appeal, how about this terrace further along the street? Nice square buildings with no complicated curved windows. Ideal scratchbuilder fodder methinks.A few minutes counting bricks should furnish a plan which could lead to some pleasant time with cardboard and plasticard.


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10 comments:

Odds said...

Amazing, Phil, I have thought exactly the same each time I've been through there, which is often as I used to work in Southam and Warwick and always went this way, but never had a camera with me. Quite how such a group of light industrials ended up in the middle of a large village, I ca't imagine, but you can be sure it'll be developed soon as some back-handering amongst the Parish council goes on.

Anonymous said...

There was an article about this group of buildings in (I think) the 3mm Society's magazine a while back.
I seem to remember some speculation that it was used at some point by Kitmaster......though I don't recall seeing any evidence to back that up and as far as I know they were based at Raunds.
I too am familiar with Flore, as before my beloved moved down here to Hastings I used to visit her at least once a week, so I'd either pass it on the bike between the M1 and Daventry or the bus from and to Northampton Railway Station.
Small world, isn't it?!
By the way, Phil........stalker alert(!).....I'm sure I saw you talking to Christopher P at his layout on Sunday but you disappeared before I had chance to make myself known.
Simon H.

James Finister said...

In theory those streetviews could be developed into a 3d model in Sketch Up as a starting point for a model

Odds said...

Or you could count bricks and use a pencil!

James Finister said...

OK, have moved past the theory stage and done it in practice, though it isn't pretty, yet

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbofin/11971999235/

Phil Parker said...

James - Fascinating work. I can see the potential already. I guess this is how some of the 3D buildings on Google maps are made.

James Finister said...

Phil, Yes, that's the idea. You first import the terrain data straight from Google Earth, use the ground plan to dimension the 3D blank, place that into Google Earth, click on a side of the sketchup model and then select part of streetview image to map on to it.

That all takes about as long to do as it has taken me to type the above!

Obviously more is involved getting a good working model but in theory it lets you produce a model with real world dimensions. You can then draw in 3D on top of the imported images. You can even get ready to go 3d corrugated iron textures. In theory you could then export to a file usable by a 3d printer.

James Finister said...

For a brilliant example of what can be done take a look at Alan Butler's work http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambrian_al/page2/

Phil Parker said...

Fascinating. I'll be honest, Iain Robinson doesn't have anything to worry about at the moment but given time...

I like the idea of mocking up the building this way though as the diorama shows. You could produce 1 1/4 scale version to get a feel of the model before devoting time and space to the full sized version.

Alan Buttler said...

It has been a great tool for producing a quick mock up, from my perspective as building the diorama primarily for photography, it's been good know what constraints there are for getting the camera inside the building etc.

As you say producing 1/4 or 1/2 scale mock ups is also appealing. My primary use of sketchup has been for laser cutting, but I'm sure you could equally use it in conjunction with the scalescenes textures. In theory applying the texture within sketchup should allow you to print the model out in 1:1 in colour and then just cut it out.

There are a few more pics of my progress on this page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambrian_al/page1 including the first test cuts on the laser cutter.