Full resolution: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ti...

The next stop is: the 8 Av part of the complex, then one big mega-map, and then, finally, hopefully, a blog post to wrap this project up nicely!

Andrew Yang's favorite station (remember that guy?) is not only notoriously complex and confusing, but also busy as hell, making the scanning a real unpleasant awkward process, but slowly chipping away at it over the past few months, I conquered my fear and produced what you see here :)

Full-res: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:42...

I guess the easy trick they mentioned yesterday for the Origin-Destination subway dataset (assume where people swipe in next is where they left the system) could work here too, though they also did say that that's just the simplified model they use for the open data, not the true internal one... 🤷‍♀️

literally one of the biggest reasons i moved here and one of the biggest reasons i can't fucking leave

So far, the Wikimedia Commons, but i'm planning to write a thing about the whole project with the next big map, hosting that and files on my website. Stay tuned or something? 😅

First time drawing alpha maps on my meshes (the street planes mostly) which was fun to figure out, other than that, a simple return to the basics, a breather, as I try to summon the courage for my next project...

Full-res:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Co...

Don't have any experience with drones (though they'd be a great fit for another project I would like to do), so I can't say much about that :/

rtabmap, their iPhone app to capture the data, point clouds and camera pictures, and their desktop app to postprocess with some extra loop closure (the reason I use rtabmap) and 3D file export for import in Blender as modeling reference :)

Full-res: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:At...

Find all map uploads in full-res here:

commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?...

...and of course... the tracks itself! Generated from Geo Nodes (I love doing crazy nodes stuff in Blender), they were a fun puzzle to figure out and I think they really tie this one together nicely, making it the most visually appealing map of the bunch yet :)

So what's next? Atlantic!

I was able to use all the improvements of my process and add two interesting things into the mix: the subtle one being the gradients on the exit stairs and elevators as well as the gradient hiding the R tracks under the big mezzanine for legibility (I love doing crazy nodes stuff in Blender),...

This last bit allowed me to stress less about the fidelity of the original scan, speeding up the process greatly---a fact I put to the test for the next map: 📍 Borough Hall / Court St. A relatively small station after the horrors of Fulton St, but nevertheless an interesting one!

...platform labels in the final composition, upgraded models for primarily the elevators, and perhaps most importantly... a quality control step of sorts, having me walk the station again, my map draft in hand to notice what was wrong and what could be improved---and there always is a lot!

...📍 Fulton St, a station so big it felt impossible to not rip floors apart into the view you see here. This station not only was the first time with this floor-separated view, affording me the easy addition of the street grid, but also using a non-ortho camera for the render, the addition of...

...📍 14 St-Union Square, I switched to the aforementioned 3D process. That was a big one and one I was very happy with at the time, demystifying that station greatly for me! But the next jump was just as big: ...

In December 2023 I started this process with 📍 Nevins St, a small station to see if this was feasible, and as you can see I didn't go the 3D modeling route yet, instead drawing the map in 2D---but I wasn't too happy with that, so for the next station...