On this page you’ll find an overview of the various models and test set ups I used over the course of this project.
In order to take cleaner photographs of the items I created, I built a small foldable ‘photostudio’ that I combined with some a2 white paper for taking photos.
This was my set up for testing the flow of water along a pole.
This was my set up for testing how much soil would get through the mesh in a sieve when water is poured through it.
This was my set up for testing the water flow on the first guttering prototype.
Throughout this project, I have created a series of increasingly detailed and elaborate models of city streets in order to visualise elements of the project. The first was a sketch model of a street with some basic houses and lampposts to demonstrate how I expected a wildlife network to look. It was made using laser cut MDF that was built into basic houses, lampposts and a street. Each lamppost had tree branches wrapped around it to represent the spiral trees and then more branches were glued together to connect the trees. All this was covered in fake moss to appear as a tree.
Ultimately, however, the scales were wrong and the model wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped.
The next model was a close up of a rooftop and lamppost to show how the first detailed prototypes will look in situ. The prototypes were made of laser cut MDF, while the lamppost is cardboard and modeling foam. The rooftop was also laser cut mdf. The guttering is real guttering as well as the soil. The plants are fake.
Finally I recreated a street, complete with houses, pavements, car, lampposts and products installed. The purpose is to show the final products in use in a realistic setting. I created a model of the street without plant life and created separate models of the overgrown vines and wisteria as combining them into one model was far too many vertices and would crash Blender. Instead I rendered the street, vines and wisteria plants separately and combined them in Photoshop.
Note: not all the textures appear in the 3D model viewer, especially the textures that make up a large portion of the plant life, see the renders on the front page to see renders of the fully textured models.
The first model showing the newly installed products. I used Blender’s particle feature to add small plants to the soil in the guttering and lamppost mounts. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear on the 3D model viewer, however underneath the street you can see where I’ve hidden the source models of the plants, which are generated onto the soil using the particle feature.
