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Build Your Own Cityscape
Hoagy writes "Many friends think I've moved when I show them this picture. I've constructed a lit model of midtown Manhattan to fill an otherwise unspectactular view out of our kitchen window. The website details the construction process and how to design and build your own. The city lights also automatically turn on/off via an X10 cronjob on my home Linux server." Nice hack job.
I live in a city
How to blow 5 months of your life.
What is it?
Approximately 7 feet past the window is a large (Your mother's been talking about me again has she?) single plane of wood with windows cut into it. The 7 x 11 foot plane of wood is actually two layers of wood with a ~1" air gap where xmas lights are mounted to light up the inside. The front plane is thin (1/8") and has the 1540 windows cut into it while the back plane of wood is 1/2" sheets of plywood. The xmas lights (about 700 lights) are mounted behind the front plane so that the light bounces off of the plywood (back plane) to scatter the light so that pinpoints of light are not visible. The models of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings consist of multiple layers in order to simulate the effect of having lights shining on their own roofs.
Most of the display is painted in light grey latex paint for both weather-proofing and tinting of the light coming from the inside. However the front is painted dark grey to make it blend into the night sky above.
How Did You Build It? - Background
Last summer (summer of 2001) I thought of this idea to make the view out of our kitchen window more interesting. Previously the view only consisted of the backs of some tall bushes but did allow lots of sunlight to enter in the mornings. The bushes were approximately 10 feet away which provided ample room to be creative. Very near that time we saw a video for the song "This Isn't Maybe" by Waldeck on Mtv2 which had a model of a city outside a balcony. The buildings were swaying to the music... this provided an example of what such a thing might look like.
Then America had a really bad Tuesday morning in September and all of my fond memories of New York City were resurrected. The cityscape project became much more interesting and conveniently the graphics startup I was working for was soon going to lay me off which meant lots of free time.
I started looking into photos of NYC in detail.. noticing the perspective effects on windows and rooftops of skyscrapers. Part of me wanted to do a realistic model, but at the same time a surrealistic (idealistic?) (stylized?) approach was attractive. Then I found "the one" (see photo right).. a photo online of the view that I had in mind. I wanted a view of midtown Manhattan at the 40-60th floor level. Distant bridges and the street level would be even more difficult to simulate, so this photo conveniently and naturally occluded these troublesome features of the real NYC.
From here on, I had a much more concrete idea of what I wanted to create.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
1. Find A Photo
Start by collecting photos of the city that you're interested in. Building details as well as overall city layout are important. The internet is a vast resource for this and I found lots of good pics at www.corbis.com . Find a photo that is at least close to the view you are looking for (see pic right). This is where you start your design.
Then, using this picture or set of pictures as your basis, you'll want to tailor it to your needs. Some things that you'll want to look at are scale, size, perspective, and complicated details.
Scale is important because you want to simulate the proper distance to the skyline. For example, if the model is too small, it will appear as if your house/apartment is too far away or too high up.
When considering size, realize that as you approach your window, your field of view widens. So you actually need to make the city larger than the window if there is going to be any distance between the city and the window. Distance between the city and the window increases realism in two ways. When walking past the window, you want the city to shift in relation to the window frame just like it would with a real city view. This is a natural effect called parallax that your brain uses every day to judge distance. The other reason for placing the city out several feet, is to minimize your ability to use stereo vision to see the distance to an object. Human stereo vision is only effective to 12-18 feet.
Perspective is the feature that will really sell your city as a realistic view. Notice top to bottom perspective as well as depth perspective. Top to bottom is pretty easy.. mount the city so that the average person's eye height is going to be level with the floors of windows that do not slope up or down. Mine is slightly off center top-to-bottom in order to fit more skyscrapers in, but it isn't obvious to most people. You'll need to make a judgement call on how much depth perspective to use. Was the original photo taken with a really wide angle lens?
You will also want to choose a photo without complicated details or edit them out. If you're an expert model maker, then by all means build a Brooklyn Bridge. It would look fantastic! But the rest of us will probably want to tone down the complication. This project is going to be laborious enough as it is. Avoid street-level views because the streets of a city are usually very animated and a static street scene will look odd.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
2. Edit Photo
Use your favorite image editor (GIMP, Paintshop Pro, etc) and adapt your chosen photo to your needs. For example, I needed to make the sky black and experiment with placement of the Chrysler building. For a while, I was experimenting with placement of the Twin Towers closer to the foreground. And ultimately I inserted a building very close to our viewpoint for an added depth effect.
I suggest that you do *all* of your experimentation on the computer. It takes way more time to re-carve out all those windows if you screw up on wood.
With modern editing programs you can assign buildings to layers and easily move them around to get the arrangement just right. Make some features more obvious.. such as windows in the photo that aren't very clear. You'll need to use your eye and imagination to create any detail that may be missing from the photo. Notice that I added more floors below those featured in the original photograph.
By creating a crude cardboard cutout of the city outline, I determined that I needed to model the lower floors for when my guests would approach the kitchen sink and look down.
Finally, place a grid over your final design. I imported the image into AutoCAD, scaled it to be actual size, and then placed a grid of 2" x 2" lines over it. You'll use this grid to transition the design to wood.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
3. Design Your Skyscrapers
I learned the hard way that I could not create a good (detailed) model of a skyscraper without a very detailed design. The Empire State and Chrysler buildings have features lit up by flood lights on their exterior. You can't simulate that effect with windows. I started out making a prototype of the Empire and it turned out awful (see pic right).
So I created a detailed design in Autocad and then printed out the design on 11x17 paper at full-scale. I could then cut out the various pieces of the Empire State from the paper and use them as stencils on the wood. Use 1/32" tolerances on everything for a much better fit. 1/16" turns out sloppy.
Because of limited room in my skyscapers, I cut holes in the back support and inserted the xmas lights deep into these holes. I used particle board because I could cut holes for xmas lights much closer together in particle board whereas plywood would just splinter apart.
Each skyscraper probably won't need a whole 50 or 100 lights, so if you take lights out of the strand, you'll need to insert a resistor so that the remaining lights don't burn brighter and burn out quickly. I've found that a string of 50 lights usually consumes about 10 Watts, so since I only needed 23 lights on the Empire State building, I removed the unneeded lights and inserted a 5 Watt 127 Ohm resistor.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
4. Build A Small Prototype
With this prototype, you will be testing paint colors, window sizes, some perspective, light placement, practice cutting the materials, and skyscraper details. I made my prototype to be approx 1 foot square and used some of the window sizes that I knew I would be using. In addition, it had the beginnings of an Empire State building on the top.
Some of the things I learned from this: 1) Natural wood color would look very warm and artistic, but also looked a lot like a jack-o-lantern. 2) I could not build an Empire State building that looked good simply by free-hand drawing the pieces. Calculated CAD work was called for instead. 3) The smallest windows would need to be punched out because no jigsaw blade is small enough to cut out a 1/8" window.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
5. Build Skyscrapers
Your skyscrapers are going to bring a lot of detail to your model. So spend the time to make them look good. Your prototype gave you the opportunity to screw up all you wanted without it being the real deal. Notice the big difference on the photo to the left between when I was at the prototype stage and when it came time to make the Chrysler Building.
My Chrysler and Empire State buildings needed to consist of several layers in order to simulate the effect of spotlights shining up on a building's rooftop. AutoCAD helped me immensely in deciding how the various layers were going to fit together. Then the best part was that with AutoCAD I could plot out my design in real world (1" = 1") scale and use it as a stencil.
I didn't have room to fit the lights on the inside of the model, so I just cut holes in the support board and inserted the lights perpendicularly. But here, too, I needed to insert a resistor in the string of lights because I was only using half of the strand.
How To Design Your Own Cityscape
6. Build The Support Framework
The framework is pretty easy.. If you're not expecting much wind, it only has to be a couple feet deep. You can use 2x4s and wood screws. Be sure to run the back supports up a significant portion of the back of the display. If your skyline has dips in it, you'll want to keep the framework from showing through. Once the city is built, just run 2" wood screws into the supporting 1/2" plywood back.
The Cityscape Project
7. Build The City
7a. Draw Out The Design
This step takes a surprisingly long time to complete. On a large flat surface, take your 1/8" hardboard 8' x 4' sheet and with pencil draw out the grid that you placed over your city design and label the rows/columns. Then begin drawing the window grids. You'll want to draw out an entire building's window grid using straight edges and then X out the windows that are going to be cut out. This keeps all your windows straight and even. Also draw out the skyline that will be exposed on the top. Mark everything clearly so that there are no mistakes with the jigsaw!
7b. Cut Out Windows
Another tedious task; place your hardboard sheet on sawhorses and begin by cutting out the unneeded skyline area. On small windows, you'll have to just drill one 1/4" hole in them and use the jigsaw blade to cut out the corners. On larger windows, drill two holes per window in opposite corners, then use the jigsaw to cut inside the lines. I went through 3 jigsaw blades very easily on the 1540 windows I had to cut out.
7c. Draw And Cut Support Backing
Place your 1/2" x 8'x4' plywood sheet on the sawhorses and then lay your cut out hardboard sheet on top. Trace the outline of the skyline onto the plywood and cut it out.
7d. Glue On Trim And Spacers
Now you need to measure, cut, and paste the trim pieces. The trim creates a gap between the hardboard layer and plywood layer where the lights can do their magic. Do all of the measuring and cutting before you begin gluing. Leave the bottom open for any water to drain out. Also place a trim piece (remember to cut notches out of it for later wiring) horizontally halfway up the display for support.
You will also want to put 2"x2" spacers scattered through the design. These spacers will be the attachment points for the plywood support panel. With mine I used 1/4" x 1+3/8" trim and conveniently 3 2"x2" cuts of plywood stacked created the perfect 1+3/8" spacer. Glue everything well and use weights to make the various pieces of trim make good contact with the hardboard. This step isn't too time consuming compared to everything else. Don't use Elmer's Wood Glue, it will melt in the rain!
7e. Paint Everything
This takes forever. Paint the plywood backing and hardboard / trim pieces completely. You want to seal the wood from the elements outside. This means you need to paint the edges around each and every window. Ugh.. painful. A large (4") paintbrush works for most of the plywood, but the edges of the plywood and window panel needs a tiny brush and a 2" brush. I've found that it works best to paint a small area of the back side first, then move to the front to paint and clean the paint out of the corners of the windows and then move back to the back to touch up any runs back there.
After the whole panel is painted, you may want a different color on the front of the display. An easy way to do this is to use a paint roller that has only a light amount of paint on it.
7f. Mount Lights
Place your hardboard/trim panel (frontside - down) on a flat surface and glue the lights to the back. Hot glue seems to work the best and is cheap but don't glue the actual bulbs down; you'll want to be able to replace the bulbs as they burn out. Try to keep the lighting even, although you might apply more for close buildings and less for far away buildings. Keep in mind any angle that the viewer will be at and hide the lights / wires from sight.
Construction Tips
I used 1/8" hardboard for the front panel, 1/4" x 1 3/8" door trim strips as spacers, and 1/2" plywood for the back support. The frame that holds this large thing upright and at the proper distance off of the ground is made of 2x4s. 1" countersunk screws connect the back support to spacers glued to the front hardboard panel.
Laying out the design onto the hardboard is as tedious as cutting out the windows. Don't draw the windows free-hand. At least in my experience, the best looking windows are produced with measurement and proper angles. Remember that the windows on a building are usually very aligned and your eye picks up on this alignment very easily. The few windows that I tried to eye-ball or free-draw turned out much less acceptable. So usually you must draw out a grid of windows for each building and then "X" out the ones that are going to have lights on inside.
Glue: don't use Elmer's Wood Glue since it melts in the rain. I've been using Franklin International's Titebond II weatherproof wood glue but haven't had a rainstorm to test its durability.
Jigsaws: The Bosch 1587AVSP is a fantastic jigsaw. It's very balanced for a smooth cut and design features like the quick change blades are very handy as well. I used this saw for most of the project and while cutting out the windows I went through three 1/4" blades that cut on the up and down stroke.
Some of the windows on far away buildings are too small to use a jigsaw. I ended up using a 1/8" screwdriver (like the ones used to repair eyeglasses) and a hammer to chisel out these windows.
Collect your xmas lights during the xmas season. It's very difficult to find inexpensive xmas light strings off-season.
If you have trouble with seeing the pinpoints of xmas light out of the windows of your skyscrapers, try covering the inside of your windows with wax paper. It will diffuse the light a bit.
When designing the city, use a large piece of cardboard as a rough approximation for what you're thinking. Mount it to a light-weight frame and see if it looks like you imagined.
TOTAL: $394.31
Special Thanks To:
These people helped the project out either with loaned/donated equipment, patience/understanding, or just plain cash.
Dave and Mary
Uncle Scott
Mom and Dad
Both Grandmas
Dan, Stacey, and Rich
Direct Access Index
Intro
What Is It?
How Did You Build It? - Background
How To Design Your Own.
1. Find A Photo
2. Edit The Photo
3. Design Skyscrapers
4. Build A Small Prototype
5. Build Skyscrapers
6. Build The Framework
7. Build The City
7a. Draw Out The Design
7b. Cut Out Windows
7c. Draw And Cut Support Backing
7d. Glue On Trim And Spacers
7e. Paint Everything
7f. Mount Lights
Construction Tips
Equipment List / Cost
© 2002 Ryan Hoagland
Seems wasteful, expensive, hazardous to do all of this with 700 Xmas lights. Why not use LEDs?
mA on the dollar.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
You can't see the Chrysler Bldg from that point on Park. The Met Life bldg blocks your view, as do all of the other tall bldg's along Lexington Ave north of the Chrysler. I seems a view like that would only come from an upper floor in a bldg on a side street between Lexington and Park.
Well that's what I meant by the east side of Park Avenue. The right hand side of the view is taken from the picture on the right hand side of http://www.hoagy.org/cityscape/background.html I think I may have been to a party in the spot where the photo the view is based on was taken. There is a condo in a pretty tall building at around 57th street. Notice you can see almost to street level of the building on the west side of Park Avenue with the multiple setbacks. I'm pretty sure you would be able to look straight down on the avenue there. There is a big black area that is the top of a building on the east side of Park Avenue. Maybe I'll take a walk over there this weekend. I know I recognize the building with all the setbacks The photo is from at least 30 floors up, probably more. The upper left hand side of the model is pretty much made up from the imagination. The Chrysler building is too short and close for one thing.
Anyway the "Met Life" building ( I still call it the Pan Am building ) straddles Park Avenue and in both the photo and the model you can see it and the silhouette of the New York Central building (some people refer to it as the Helmsley Building ) in front of it, right about where you would expect to see them from the east side of Park Avenue.
What makes you think we should all go around in black armbands becauses your country got attacked? The USA has been funding and supporting terrorism all over the world, including the UK (you know, the people who saved your arses in the Gulf and in Afghanistan?), but when the terrorists hit the US with *one* attack you get all precious about it.
No wonder you get so little sympathy.
No, you won't. You'll build your own Iron Curtain around the USA, and hide from the evil terrorists outside. Look at yourselves now - your government has banned you from travelling to, or trading with Cuba. How can you say you're free?
Your idiotic governments keep getting you tangled up in wars that you should stay out of. Oh, there isn't a war on just now? Let's start one! It's funny how all your wars seem to have something to do with wealthy, oil-producing countries.
Throughout the 70's and 80's, possibly even into the nineties - remember NORAID, I don't remember the USA stopping the bank accounts of NORAID members. America has, until recently, always backed the Republican cause (which would be fine if it wasn't so entwined with Terrorism).
In Northern Ireland we deal with Terrorism every day (the past weekend has been a nightmare with shootings just two minutes walk from me), and I don't see America coming down on the IRA, UVF, UFF etc.
Forget the past, it's irrelevant - America and the UK both share plenty of blame for what's going on in the world.
Has no-one asked the question 'why do they hate us so much', instead of just seeking retribution.
I can see why he used a jigsaw to cut the edge of the skyline, but to cut out all those windows he would have been better served with a Roto-zip tool. Cutting out 1,540 windows with a jigsaw would take forever!
in the movie Total Recall, an entire wall was devoted to a landscape scenic view (using 3 panels) that turned into a television (using 1 panel).
i think that this portrayal is a very real indication of what we will have in the near future.