For my building can and 3D modeling lab, I chose to model the Ashter residential house. Ashter House is a student housing building located on a steep hillside. I chose this house because it seemed to be quite simple architecturally and almost soothing to look at, as there were no crazy features that would cause trouble for the scanner/polycam application. The combination of multiple floors, balconies, and compartments within the building made it a compelling subject for testing how well scanning tools handle it.
(front of Aster house)
To generate my model, I used Polycam for mobile scanning and Metashape for photo processing. Both platforms presented significant challenges, largely due to the building’s position on a hill. Because the backside of the house sits directly against a steep slope, I was physically unable to walk behind the building and capture enough photos of that side; therefore, I struggled to create an accurate representation of the backside of the house. Every single time, the app would skip over the backside of the house. Despite taking over 60 photos in polyscan the change in elevation and my human imperfection when taking the photos led to a pretty bad representation of the house. In Metashape, this led to incomplete shapes and distorted surfaces near the top and back edges of the model. Polycam produced a more cohesive overall shape, but still showed major warping and missing data where I couldn’t reach the back and the side of the house. The steep hill made it impossible to capture full coverage, especially when it was covered in ice. Here is Polycam version of my photos.
This experience made it clear how important physical access and environmental is when creating accurate models. Even with extensive photos, certain real-world constraints can significantly impact the final result. Unlike smaller objects or open spaces, large buildings on uneven ground require much more strategic thinking in terms of camera placement and movement.
Overall, this lab shifted my understanding of 3D modeling from something that seems mostly technical to a process that is mostly physical and spatial. Being forced to work around the limitations of the environment made me appreciate how much effort goes into producing accurate public 3D models of real-world structures. The project also made me more aware of how architectural design, landscape, and accessibility directly affect digital accessibility.