How do I model a real-world building?

Question

This isn't exactly a game development question, but I am planning on using Unity as my engine and modeling in Maya so I was hoping folks on here might have some experience with this.

I want your advice or examples of modeling real-world buildings (inside and outside) ensuring accuracy but not necessarily detail.

The breakdown:

• I am doing a project in which I want to make a 3d interactive, explorable map of my university's campus.
• I am starting small with making one single building as my prototype.
• My plan is/was to model the building in Maya then import it into Unity to make the application.
• So far I have been able to access floor plans, however they lack measurements/dimensions (width, length, height, etc)
• I am in the process of attempting to get more resources but am unsure of what I will be able to acquire
• I have access to the building in question
• As a legitimate school project, I can try to get permission for various related needs

I wanted to know if anyone has any experience related to what I am doing or if anyone may be able to point me in a good direction for any resources that may help me.

Answer 1

In doing a similar project, I found the SketchUp modeling program to be excellent for copying existing architecture. That's what Google originally meant it for after all.

Here's an account of how I did this:

Outsides

SketchUp's Photo Match feature (tutorial video) is an absolute killer.

It lets you to do this:

1. Load in a photograph of the real building from any perspective.
2. Adjust the model axes to match the photograph.
3. Edit the model directly over the photograph.

SketchUp automatically maps the photograph's textures to your model. You can take multiple photographs of the building from multiple directions and repeat this process for all of them.

This should also give you a pretty good idea of where the floor of each level of the building should be placed.

Insides

Building insides are hard, but become easier once you have the outside frame. You can use SketchUp's Section Plane feature (tutorial page) to see inside your model. I recommend creating a floor polygon for each level of the building at a height based on the external model of the building. You can then Photo Match the floor plans as textures onto each of these floor polygons in turn!

You can then use the floor plan texture to draw in the contours of the walls and extrude them out to form actual walls. Depending on the level of detail you want, you can use the floor plan to correctly place doors and furniture. Once you're satisfied, just delete the floor plan texture from the floor.

Answer 2

Just found a recent good article on Getting Real-World Objects into Unity 3D that adds a different and good prespective using MeshRoom and MeshMixer.

The following image shows the three steps required to achieve it

1. Take several photos, as many as possible, around the object and use MeshRoom to digitize it. This tutorial illustrates the process. Upon saving Meshroom's own files the program also creates a folder named "MeshroomCache" (\MeshroomCache\Texturing) where it deposits the result in the widely exportable .obj format.
2. The digitized object will probably need some cleaning (parasite shapes of the surroundings) and/or reshaping. That's easily done with MeshMixer. Since digitized objects tend to be highly detailed and heavy on rendering, we may need to reduce/simplify the complexity/detail of the model, a feature included in MeshMixer. this program also exports to .obj format (among others). Look at Meshmixer Quick Tips tutorials.
3. Finally drag the .obj with the associated textures into a Unity 3D project. It's a straight standard process explained in Unity's manual.

All credits go to the Bael X3D's user vcard.

One other solution for the problem is to use apps like

• 3Dflow
• QLONE
• TRNIO

to create the model and then import it as a normal 3D import.