Google Sketchup

In 2006, the agency I was working for contracted with the City of Port Orchard, WA. to support them in reviewing their downtown building height limits. As part of our scope of work, our agency was to present to their Design Review Board and City Council a model of the current downtown building heights and a model of the recommended downtown building heights. The model needed to be interactive (e.g. we needed to be able to view heights from various vantage points in the city) and needed to be flexible (e.g. we needed to be able to adjust height limits on the model).

At the time, I had heard about @Last's Sketchup rendering software and had seen online examples of 3D models of objects, however, I had no personal experience with the software and hadn't seen the software used for this application. I proposed using Sketchup and the project team agreed to my recommendation, and then I found myself frantically trying to figure out how to use the software and apply it to our project.

Current Downtown Heights - Waterfront Aerial View:
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Proposed Downtown Heights - Waterfront Aerial View:
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Proposed Downtown Heights - From Kitsap St. above Harrison St.:
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Proposed Downtown Heights - View from Sidney Ave. looking down Prospect St.:
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Proposed Downtown Heights - View looking down Bay St.:
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Proposed Downtown Heights - View looking down Sidney Ave.:
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In the end, the Sketchup models of the city were effective in convincing the city that the revised downtown building heights would not impact the waterfront views for downtown residents and that the city's profile from the water would not be drastically altered. The city ended up adopting the revised downtown building heights in part to the Sketchup models we created.