In Case of Armageddon, Break Out the GIS

ADiva writes "There's a detailed, three-dimensional, interactive map of New York City which captures the five boroughs down to the square foot, incorporating everything from building floor plans to subway and sewer tubes. Could the city be rebuilt if destroyed? Should it?" As a New York resident, let me say that if something Bad happened to the city, I hope it is built anew rather than trying to recreate the 1910-era buildings that make up half the city's housing. An "Old New York" in the Metaverse might be fun to visit, though.

Comments

I vote for 100 year old designs

[doom]

As a New York resident, let me say that if something Bad happened to the city, I hope it is built anew rather than trying to recreate the 1910-era buildings that make up half the city's housing. An "Old New York" in the Metaverse might be fun to visit, though.

As a San Francisco resident who has seen the difference between buildings put up at the turn of this century and at the turn of the last one, I would sincerely vote for building replicas of 100 year old designs.

Somewhere along the way, modern industrial culture lost the ability or the desire to build anything that isn't a piece of crap. If anyone can explain why that is exactly, this thread might not be a totally useless fluff magnet.

Most places should get virtual copies made

[philipsblows]

With the advent of these new standardized 3D file and render formats (see here) I would think that there would be plenty of room in the virtual museum business, along with maybe virtual architecture, virtual chamber of commerce, etc, to construct virtualized cities from the past and present for everyone with a copy of Mozilla 2.0 to view and enjoy.

Granted, it is a lot of work...

I really like this one, a temple in ancient Thailand reconstructed for walktroughs and everything. It's only a small area, of course, but this sort of thing would at the very least change the way history is taught in the future... especially if it is easily editable.

Of course, being able to play 2nd generation and later online multiplayer games in super-accurate virtual cities from around the world would be pretty cool, to say the least.

Get over it

[K.]

Considering that the USA and the rest of the world lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation from
pretty much the fifties to the dismantling of the USSR, you're letting this pissant terrorist threat thing get to ye far more than it should. It's hard not to wonder if you aren't in fact just being cynically manipulated to distract you from the ridiculous amount of domestic problems your current administration is causing and/or ignoring.

It's about time you got over it, either built a Ground Zero memorial park or used the space for buildings, stopped beating up on random eastern countries, implemented decent accounting laws, and returned to being the arrogant but lovable bunch of tech-obsessed golden boys that we all remember from the 90s.

And ratify Kyoto already - have you seen the weather lately? Can't you take a hint?