Cities are exploring creative ways to get themselves on the virtual map. Some, such as Chula Vista, California are asking local residents to help. Others, like Mishawaka, Indiana and Poznań, Poland are running contests with cash awards to entice modeling support. While the approaches vary, what’s clear is that cities see the value of a digital representation that is publicly available on Google Maps and Google Earth.
The City of Poznań announced the results for its competition last week. The goal of the organizers (as outlined on the competition web site) was to model specific buildings on the old imperial route through the city. The route contains lots of heritage buildings that the city is eager to promote, including royal palaces, opera houses, the old market area, and other historic buildings.
The competition poster for Poznań's geo-modeling competitionThe Poznan competition was uncharacteristically short – November 22 through December 19 – interested parties had to act fast. Word of the competition quickly spread to others in the geo-modeling community. Entrants possessed a range of experience, but (not surprisingly) several experienced geo-modelers participated. These included Marcin Kruk (nevermor) and Supermodelers Filip Michałowski (Athinaios) and Tomasz Szular (tomcioZG).
The city hasn’t indicated how many entries were received, but it recently announced the winners. Entries were received from as far away as the United States. The competition was supported by the local Google office, who provided prizes to the winners in addition to the cash prizes that were awarded by the city.
Local geo-modeler tomcioZG had this to say about the competition: “I'm happy with this contest and glad that someone in Poland is trying to organize something like this. I only wish the duration were longer – I submitted my last model seven minutes before the end of the competition!”
He went on to say: “I know that this competition was to determine interest, and I think City Hall should be pleased with the result. I checked all the models and they are made really well. After the competition I spoke with an employee of Poznań City Hall, who told me that if all goes well, they will hold this year a new contest.”
The city is still in the process of publishing the models to the 3D Warehouse. Some of the results can be found in this collection.
Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
9 comments :
恭賀~tomcioZG~未來台灣也將努力藉由此類型的比賽~來推廣建模:>:>
在一次恭賀tomcioZG&參與此活動的建模師~
Tang(熊出沒)
Congratulations Tom ! :)
It's sad that information about competition is on this site after its end. I bet that it would be many more contributors (than those 23 models) if the info would be at the beggining. But maybe it suposed to be like that prizes went to friends.
Another typical polish contest...
@przygod - there was an announcement about this competition on Google Poland blog, it was posted on 25th November, so everyone could saw it!
@Athinaios
...and how many people intrested in sketchup modeling read sketchup blog and how many polish google blog?:)
As I remember from this blog every competition mentioned in the past had post about it at the start, then one to remember about the end and one with the results.
For me it was a mistake that nobody wanted to invite for example students from Poznań to this competition. I remember that in Toruń and Gdańsk students made some models even without competition only after some teaching of using Sketchup by experienced modeler. For those in Poznań it would be even more encouraging if they would receive a prize for their input.
If you think that result of 23 models uploaded by few people in this kind of competition with 18 first prizes in different categories is a good result i have not much to say:)
Well, I agree with you that not many people reads this blog, even I'm not an everyday follower.
The fact is the duration of the competition was very short, just a bit more that 3 weeks, so even someone know about it, that person couldn't make any effort, because simply of lack of time - as you probably know it takes a lot of time to take photos of a certain building and then edit them and eventually make a good model. I'm wondering too how many people were participating and how many models were sent, that would show if people were interested. Another fact is that competition was just a "test" to figure out by Poznań City Hall if people are going to make it, that's another reason why there wasn't much time.
It wasn't a nice feeling when you said "prizes went to friends". Believe me, no one was priviliged. I made even one more model, but unfortunately for me, someone's model was better :)
I just wish the next competition would have better media cover, so everybody will be well informed :)
If you want more infos about it, feel free to send me an email.
Athinaios as I see you are also a winner so congratulations:)
My comment was based on that that only half of competition targets were covered by models from few people so as I think they even not received any of those.
I bet that many students of architecture or even other citizens in Poznań would like to spend some time for modeling this objects if they would even know about that prize sponsored by themself...
Many thanks for congratulations.
@przygod Easy, it was the first contest in Poznań. I hope that if contest will be organized again and the City Hall will have more time, the competition will be better promoted. I believe that the outcome of the contest is satisfactory since the contest lasted only 3 weeks (in a very hot time, before Christmas).
I promise that if I had seen on the next contest I will do everything to tell an even greater number of people about it.
This the great blog !!
Congratulations Tom ! I agree with you that not many people reads this blog, even I'm not an everyday follower.thanks to the post..
agenzie hostess
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