Thread: Post a photo a week, of anything/anywhere

Aerial photo taken on Sept. 28, 2018 shows vehicles moving on the Baisha Bridge in Liuzhou, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The Baisha Bridge was put into use on Friday. The 1,920-meter long and 38-meter wide bridge started construction in May, 2015


Daytime.



Night-time



Central Arch

Once upon a time in the west, I worked in an architects office producing 3D computer models from the architects sketches for planning approval. The design group was sold en bloc to another architectural company and we moved in. They had not used 3D CAD modelling previously so I was assigned to the architectural future projects and competition group.

One competition was for a leisure centre/swimming pool competition. The architects would present me with plans and sketches and my role was to create 3D CAD models from which images could be extracted for their entry. One software feature was the ability to project a shape along a centre line which changed from say a square cross section to a circular cross section. My ability to create the water flumes,



External swimming pool water flumes.

This technique allowed images to be produced from any selected point along them and in any direction helped the architects to review or modify their designs and obtain planning approvals and investment funding. Subsequently once the design had been finalised videos were produced and included in their competition proposals. The videos illustrated the experience of a person sliding down a flume, going through enclosed an open sections twisting around structure and through glass walls and ending up outside into the pool. Nowadays of course they all use 3D models. But only Fosters, at the time a London based and one of the world's leaders in architectural design, was producing better.

As you can see on the central arch of the bridge the vertical shape twists from the external face as it rises to the internal face as it descends. Prior to 3D computer modelling it would have been nigh on impossible to create the wooden formwork enabling the shape of the arch segments to be poured.

Nowadays it's old hat and many infrastructure/building designs utilise 3D modelling to ensure components slip together seamlessly on site and sell the projects to clients and investors.