How to get height data of buildings

[TOFFEE]

Hello.I have to model a lot of buildings in 3ds Max for my temporary street circuits.How to determine the height of those buildings in GoogleEarth using plugins or special software like for instance MICRODEM ?There are a couple of great sources of height data like LiDAR(Light Detection And Ranging),Aerial Photography,RADAR,DTM(Digital Terrain Model),DSM(Digital Surface Model).By combining the height information from the DTM,DSM,LiDAR and integrating these with building outlines it`s possible to calculate the height of individual buildings.How to do it using Google Earth?
Thank you in advance for any helpful answers.

 

[Barbje_Keller]

I'm personaly when make my models, used standarts of architectures (about 3m heigth between floors (for modern buildings) in first floor about 4m (for any comunications... ). But my method is not very precise. Foundations can be measured, with google maps help - if you know maps scale...

 

[James Capper]

you can use the ruler tool in google earth to get fairly accurate lenths and widths of buildings but the height are another problem....if you go on photographic evidence... knowing the standard height of something like a standard door frame which i think is 6'5" should help in guaging the height of a building.

 

[martinez]

When I'm making some buildings with Sketchup, the default buddy (the man) is very helpful to set nice looking height and proportional dimensions at all. Then as Barbje said, I also use the standart floor height around 2,8 - 3 meters.

 

[lordpantsington]

The best bet for accuracy is to look up details on individual bits of the building. (Bricks,siding, doors, windows are all pretty standard components. Try sweets. While photos are good, you will find unless you sink some serious cash into the correct type of lens items around the edge of the photo are going to be distorted by the curvature of the lens. The further from the center of a lens the more you can assume the item is distorted. Not sure where you are from but city offices usually have some records on file.

OR just go here:
http://www.emporis.com/en/bu/

 

[Barbje_Keller]

I'm too, put spectators near the model... And then you must look for proportions.

 

[martinez]

For me, it's not really important if some building should be exactly 3 meters high or around 3,5 meters Also, too many details makes just the number of polygons bigger - I never see so much when driving 140 km/h I just try to find good proportional look.

 

[mianiak]

I recommend making the mesh to the picture, (after you have done the best lens correction you can do to the pic) create a plane with the same dimensions as the picture, add the picture to the plane and cut out around the building and delete the excess bits. Align the side vertices to x or y (just incase they aren't straight) and extrude and make the sides and roof.

Then you can go make a texture of all the sides on one image and uvmap it to the box you now have.

 

[martinez]

Thanks, Mianiak - I guess it can't be done (easy) in Sketchup though, but you are right.