Maison d’Artiste Layar 3d model

At DPI we’ve created a 3d model of the Maison d’Artiste which has been especially made for the Museumnight Rotterdam. The 3d model can be viewed with the mobile AR application from the NAi (Netherlands architecture institute) called UAR or from within Layar.
Also check out my post on the blog of the NAi itself. It’s in Dutch by the way.

The Maison d’Artiste designed by Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg, modeled by DPI Animation House
The model is an exceptionally complicated one. The geometry of the spaces is very complex to recreate. Especially the staircase is a piece of work. It connects all floors on different levels. I’m wondering how the architects were able to create architecture like this without 3d-software. My mind would explode!

Here I’ll show a demo of the model with the javascriptobject from Finn Rudolph.

Click on the image to activate the navigation, then drag the mouse to turn the model around.

From the outside a model like this looks pretty simple to make (I’m disregarding the complicated design for a moment). To be able to make it run on a mobile device however requires the model to be extremely compact. This model is little over 2000 triangles and hardly has any textures. For use within UAR there’s a limit of 256*256 pixels in total. That’s about 65.000 pixels of texture for the entire model. Although these tight limits are technical specifications for the 3d model, they define the way how the architecture is presented. The challenge here is to capture the architecture as accurate as possible with 2000 triangles and 65.000 pixels.

A wire of the model shows the architecture divided into boxes and faces