Put Letchworth on the 3D Map!

Great news! – the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation has granted us a total of £1,000 to fund the following activities:

• The hire of the Broadway Cinema
• Printing the final round of publicity
• Promotion of the event
• Development of winning entries

This afternoon there was a satirical Short Story on radio about the launch of the iHole into the empty consumer-gadget market left by the break-up of Apple Corporation. As a pocket-sized black hole, its only function was to disposal of small objects; yet it immediately became so inexpressibly cool that it achieved vast global sales – Listen Again to continue (BBC Radio 4 on 28th October)…

Which prompts the question: why is this competition offering global consumer goods as prizes whilst it seeks to promote a local sense of place, a Carbon Footprint calculator etc.? Is this a cynical ploy to confuse the public or hasten the end of the world as we know it?

Well, No and No… for a start, the project is not nearly so ambitious. At the outset, the project team of organisers and sponsors decided to aim the prizes at technology-aware members of the public, especially to  include young and young-ish entrants.

So the Google tablet, the software items and the cash prizes are just a means to an end that fits with current values, starting with awards that people are used to and pointing to more local and personal values; in short, those of community and crowd-sharing.

The competiton closes at end October, but if you’re quick you can display your 3D digital modelling skills – and feel good about it! A ‘sustainable Letchworth’ building or scene would be especially welcome.

Web site with full instructions: http://competition.letchworthfestival.org/
Email address: competition@letchworthfestival.org
Showcase of 3D models so far (search on ‘Letchworth Herts’): http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

The buildings being modelled so far are listed in this earlier post: here.

If you’re wondering what building to choose, please consider these ones that have been requested:

• The Three Magnets (Wetherspoons)/Letchworth Arts Centre corner building on Leys Avenue,  SG6  3EW.
• North Hertfordshise District Council’s main offices in Gernon Road, SG6 3JF.
• The Nexus Building on Broadway, SG6 3TA (to replace the rough draft shown in 3D Warehouse).

Let us know if you need photos of the sides and rear views…

We are holding a 3D Technology Innovations event on 16th November at The Hub, Station Road, Letchworth, SG6 3BQ. This will be a specialist business-to-business event with a much wider focus than that of the Competition to model buildings.

The purpose is for companies to share in a review of the state of the art and prospects in the fast-evolving fields of 3D digital modelling, visualisation and related technologies. Bring your laptops and links to display exhibits to illustrate current practice, advances and developments.

Attendance is by invitation though sponsors are all entitled to take part. Places are limited – unless we switch to a larger venue! – so please let us know a.s.a.p. if you wish to attend.

This is a reminder of the steps by which you can create a three-dimensional model of a building or street scene using Trimble SketchUp (as featured in our new poster).

Our new poster has just been printed and distributed. It publicises the final stage of the Competition and the SketchUp Practice sessions in support of that, up to the extended closing date of 31 October. This round of publicity was generously funded by Hertfordshire County Councillor Keith Emsall from his locality budget, for the benefit of all of Letchworth Garden City.

This is a low-quality copy for ease of downloading. Let us know if you can use a full-quality version (JPEG format @ 2.5 MB)

Good news: North Hertfordshire District Council’s Letchworth Area Committee has met in full our application for £400 to publicise and enhance our Finale in mid November 2012! The Committee especially liked our project’s focus on innovation, opportunity, industry and bringing all sectors together in a local initiative. The two parts of the funding are as follows:

• £300 for publicity in the local press, to supplement coverage in the Letchworth Arts Centre’s Festival programme and in the Broadway Cinema’s coverage of the Awards event.
• £100 for an incentive for modelling, especially if a civic or other public or community premises can be finished to a professional standard.

Several councillors expresses their keenness on the project in terms of young people taking part, engagement with high-technology companies and the showcasing industries of the future. Nick Gill, the reporter for The Comet local newspaper, was present and wishes to work up a feature article in early October.

This grant funding will enable us to boost publicity for the showcase/finale and to celebrate the presence of the District Council in Letchworth.

We’ve finished the SketchUp Taster training sessions from scratch.

Instead we are holding FREE Practice sessions Saturdays in October: 13th, 20th and 27th from 10 am to 12 noon at The Hub at 43 Station Road, SG6 3WA. map

We are also holding drop-in sessions on these Wednesdays in October: 17th, 24th and 21st from 2 pm to 4 pm at J.D. Wetherspoons (The Three Magnets) 18-20 Leys Avenue Letchworth, SG6 3EW. site

Please bring a laptop with SketchUp and Google Earth installed or else let us know that you need to share a PC. There’s no instructor; we just share tips and troubleshooting as we work up our 3D models for entry to the Competition. Remember that you can find handy video tutorials by searching on ‘SketchUp’ in YouTube. example

As we accept grant funding from various sources, we accept requirements to make our competition and events accessible to the widest range of people we can. This post summarises the extent to which we do so.

• Venues for events (and progress meetings): We are using public premises with wheelchair access: Letchworth Arts Centre, North Herts. College, The Community Hub (downstairs) and the Broadway Cinema in November.
• Entry to the Competition: Anyone with a visual impairment has a particular interest in, and awareness of, urban living spaces; so it would be fitting to make this competition accessible. However in our present state of technology, SketchUp modelling is inherently visual: sculpting a virtual shapes on a computer screen and applying photographs to its surfaces. The operating systems and SketchUp offer tools such as magnification that help to overcome a lack of visual or motor precision.* We reviewed this concern yesterday with a specialist but we have found for a blind person to use these software tools. Please advise us if you know otherwise. *Note: 3D modelling could be used to convey the shape of the final ‘townscape’ – offers welcome to produce a maquette – but it is unaffordable as a medium to assist the process of working up a model.
• Finale events: We will use large, high contrast screens for displaying the entrants’ and sponsors’ 3D models and visualisations in high resolution in the Festival marquee and the Broadway Cinema. In both contexts we will be explaining what is on the screen. However anyone with auditory impairment may have difficulty in the marquee and most likely during question times in the cinema’s auditorium. We are not planning to employ a signer – offers welcome! – but we will either use roving microphones or repeat each question from the podium.

Here is a list of community meeting places you might care to model. They range from simple shapes (Brotherhood Hall and Willian Village Hall) to quite complex ones:

• Brotherhood Hall, Gernon Road, SG6 3HL web site [started by JC]
• Jackmans Community Centre, Ivel Court, SG6 2NL, web page
• Letchworth Arts Centre and the Three Magnets (Wetherspoons), Leys Avenue, SG6 3EW
• The Gallery, Station Road/The Wynd, SG6 3BL web page
• The Grange Community Centre, Middlefields, SG6 4NG web page
• Letchworth Garden City Bowls Club, Norton Common, Icknield Way, SG6 4ET web page*
• Howgills, 42 South View, SG6 3JJ, web site
• The Settlement, 229 Nevells Road, SG6 4UB web site [being started by MH]
• The Community Hub, Station Road [started by RL but needs updating] web page*
• Willian Village Hall, Willian, SG6 2AP, web page
• North Hertfordshire District Council’s Leisure Centre, Baldock Road, SG6 2GR web page*

*See the page Learning to use SketchUp for sets of photographs.

Also Hertfordshire County Council’s list of community venues is here with postcodes here.