3D models of Coventry

Nowhere yet MR. I've finished the mock city where I decided what was where. There are a few bits of that on here. I'm only just starting in earnest. I've got a lot of research, which was a project in itself. I'm still partly trying to decide on the level of detail. Laths on the underside of roofs is going to be an illusion but what about the supports for the laths? Every extra item I add to a building makes the computer work harder, especially when multiplied over a city. I could leave those things till a later version but it's quite hard to modify completed buildings. Just working out Cook Street gate has been complicated task. Did it have a vaulted tunnel (it seems likely), where were the original people doors (they've been modified over the years), how did the portcullis work (at first glance the tower doesn't look tall enough), what were the gates like (they must have been flat topped) what was the top of the tower like and how did they get up there? I think that I've worked most of the answers out but...

mcsporran, Helen How do I answer you without offending? I know you are being patient with me but you're treating me as if I'm 'old'. Now all this is old hat, it's been around for over thirty years and you don't seem to know. 1993 for me to be exact, a circular cinema, screen all around, no seats but short metal barriers to hold on to, these same square buildings flash by at ninety mph on either side back and front, then a change, the floor shakes and the buildings topple around you, no matter where you look and you hold on to the barrier tight, and it's me that's blinking an eye. Then you're in a stage coach surrounded by Indians on all sides, they're firing arrows at you, and yes, kids duck. No, your Pete is very much a brilliant boy, but a very long way to go. So guessing what the Rex and streets of Coventry once looked like is pure imagination.

Yes and no Kaga. Pre filmed 3D has been around even longer. High level digital animation has been around a long time too and one of the first major ones was Toy Story, released in 1995. Those types of creation took a lot of people and money. You wouldn't have been able to move around those creations at will either. Modern 3D can let you do that, although the capabilities of phones might limit you to a few set points around the city where you could look around you. A games laptop/pc could let you explore fully but only if the full city is built (eg, the flats of cowboy towns would have looked very different from the back). There is no Hollywood studio offering to turn the photos and sketches into anything, let alone something realistic. Even with 2021, the council had no plans to bring life to the past. The streets and the Rex aren't that far from reality - think sketch rather than full colour illustration. What was playing at the Rex isn't exactly important for recreating the building and Pete might have just picked it because he could get an agreement to use it in his animation.

Hi, Just to put my oar in. The pic shows the angel on the edge of the council house clock. Because of size restrictions on the forum it is reduced to 1000 pixels wide as opposed to the 6000 pixels of the original image. It inevitably loses a lot of the fine detail. It is just a tiny part of the Council House. Just think if I were to to take pictures of the whole exterior in such detail how large the combined file would need to be. Most computers would crash or would take a day to load it onto the screen.

I think this topic has many fans so I hope my criticism doesn't annoy anyone. We have many old photos on here and they are superb, as are the old shots on your modern versions. No, I just love the way the city was and I lost, being older it must be deeper. I'll stay off this topic from now on. Kaga.

It's not about being a fan but recognising that he's trying something incredibly difficult. Not just difficult software (several different unfamiliar packages) but working out the buildings from grainy photos of the front. People need encouragement to do something so novel and massive. Yes, we're all longing for a realistic rendition of the city but even the professionals at Warwick Uni are only trying to recreate a part of Spon Street and after an initial fanfare, they've gone very quiet. Last I heard, they were struggling to get the computing power to string together more than a few buildings.

So what's obviously wrong about Pete's St Mary's? To start with the gateway was probably to the left of where he's put it and only about half the size. You can just see the Spotted Dog sign and he's built over the old, jettied half, not the new, brick, flat fronted side. Archaeologists put it there. The reason I think that the gate was so off centre from the Cathedral door was to cope with the slope. The gatehouse was probably smaller than Pete has imagined it. More like the gateway into Whitefriars cloister (not the one on Much Park Street). It may even have had a timber upper storey. Not recorded as far as I know was a larger structure that was located at the bottom of Hill Top and incorporated into later buildings. It may have served as more of a gateway into the complex than the one on Butcher Row. Even the doorways on the Priory Row side may have been in more general operation than the main doorway and gate. The relationship of the Cathedral and the peasants was an odd one that I don't really understand. Apart from special occasions and well healed big wigs, the cathedral was probably just for the monks. From excavation of the cathedral they know that there was a small door to the left of the main door. This would have been used to get to additional buildings including the sextonry (sometimes called the sextry or sacristy, where they kept the vestments and valuables when not in use). There are different ideas what this looked like or exactly where it was but there has been recent excavations that shed light on that. The courtyard was probably flattened by eating into the slope on the south and building up the slope to the level of the gate on the north, creating a flat area. This needed substantial retaining walls on all 3 sides. There is a mixed opinion as to whether the Lychgate Cottages were there at the time of the Cathedral as I believe that some of the wood indicates great age but I favour the idea that the cottages might have been relocated for the Civil War. The existing courtyard wall would have served very well as the beginnings of a cellar. That would explain why the pillar bases of the south tower were buried and built over with the cottages. The next thing I know to be wrong is that there were a couple of shallow steps up to the main cathedral door and quite a few semi circular steps down into the body of the cathedral. Even from the low level of the courtyard, the building was sunk further still. That's why there is such a drop from Priory Row into the ruins you can see today. It's easy to assume that there was a raised floor over crypts but since they excavated the doorway, the steps and the tiled floor, they know it was very low down. On top of the excellent books on the excavations and conclusions about St Mary's I thoroughly recommend Troughton's works because he made a determined effort to record stonework in his time, much of which was buried or removed by even the earliest official excavations in the last century. He records a lot of the stonework, including decorative pieces. I've also found some excellent plans of the front wall, that indicate Pete's large octagon columns need rotating slightly. The pointy bit faced forward. The two inner columns also butted up to the doorway which had an impressive number of fluted small columns (at least 6). All the columns big and small had angular bases, lifting the more delicate carving off the ground. As for the rest of the cathedral, I just don't know enough to say what it looked like, give or take a few features in the ground.

Hi all, Helen cheers for the feedback with the Cathedral film - it was a bit of a fudge! Hence a work in progress. The gatehouse was a bit of an afterthought. It is actually based on one of the first models I made, based on the priory gatehouse in my home town of Malvern. And yep you're right about the location. The problem that keeps coming back to haunt me is the lack of references points. There has been so much reprofiling of the ground and loss of buildings that pinning down a point in space (and time) accurately is really hard. Butcher Row was modelled a while ago now. I projected a historic map onto the topography I had to hand, google earth, so it was already 'off'. So the relationship between Butcher Row and the cathedral entrance is off by a few metres. I've now plotted out the topography using the 1880s historical map (many of the heights were measured in beer gardens so I hope whoever did it was a clear-headed at the time). I'm having now to remodel things, which is part of the process. This also explains the struggle with the steps etc - again it's a fudge and no way accurate. When the cathedral was built it began to roll down the hill, so I'm sure there was a lot of bodge jobs done to keep things from falling apart. What I am confident with is the relative heights of things. Most cathedrals work on a similar formula, based on the distance between the columns and the known number of columns, the rest of it can be 'assumed'. Some of the details are taken from Lichfield Cathedral. There's debate if the cathedral had a wooden roof or a stone vault - there's a huge amount of stone so for me it makes sense for it to be a vault. I'm no expert in any of this, it is all a bit of a guess! The top-end by the altar is a complete nightmare to work out the geometry. The film skirts over this, there are some massive gaps. From the various 'plans', the closest thing I found to how it might have looked is Cologne Cathedral. We're all in the same boat with guessing. Technology is rapidly advancing to the point you can use your phone to image an object via an app and it spits out a 3D model. Lidar scanning the ruins and imaging all known/excavated stonework would make a massive 3D jigsaw puzzle (80% missing and no picture). As cathedrals have a lot of repetition, cut and paste can fill in a lot of the gaps. It would be a relatively straight forward Uni project for someone. Theorectially with a database of known 'cathedral stone' you could use this for an app to spot other stones that have been reused in the city. As for the Rex - the film playing in the cinema is the first film that was being played. Copyright issues have caused me no end of confusions as to what is/is not allowed. You're allowed to adapt certain works for artistic works. So the film being shown in the Rex film are clips from the actual film that was first shown, all the posters in the film are the ones that were shown at the time. On the table of the dining room, the menus are the menus from the opening night. Since the film was made I have more info on the design that I need to correct in future remodels - this whole project is a learning experience so nothing is set in stone, it's very fluid. One thing that is missing from the Rex - there was a large silhouette painting in the dining room of actors of the day, I had a go at reimaging this but it didn't look right so had to leave it out. VR technology is rapidly developing and I have a mock-up of a tram ride experience through the city using an oculus rift - it is in no fit state to show anyone. I'm letting the technology develop a bit further before I make any serious inroads into VR. I have loads of ideas of what could be done. On the subject of technology - I've been sidetracked with colouring old photos, films and deep fakes. I'm interested to see how this develops, but it also makes me feel a little uncomfortable in bringing the dead back to life in this way. Especially after watching the Westworld. There are some links on the Cov Rebuilt website on how to colourise old photos online for free - Forgotten Faces - Coventry Rebuilt For ages, I've been grasshopping around with loads of bits and I need to focus to finish them off and start sharing stuff. In all of this, I moved back to West Mids just before the lockdown and started a new job, so things have been a bit odd. Anyway, I actually came on here to find something out. Is there a list of women who played Lady Godiva by year? I've had a quick look and can't find one - I know this is the wrong thread so forgive me for posting here but as I started jabbering on, I can't stop. I have an idea for a project that I can get sorted very quickly with what I have to hand. Cheers Pete

Hi Pete I have struggled with the landscape. I put height mark 'pegs' on the entire map only to go back to some of the first ones and discover that they'd shifted. Put me off for ages. I've started building the roads and landscapes in models. At least now they'll stay fixed and use a lot less tris than the landscape tools. I'm really pleased with my research - a lot had come in last year from the City Engineers dept. My modelling ability now matches my ambitions and I have the textures to progress. Looking forward to seeing more of the city... from both of us.

Keep up with the good work Pete - love your stuff Be good to meet up one day at a Heritage weekend or Historic Cov breaky perhaps?

Peter has added a new one!

Outstanding, especially the market hall

Great story to it, not just a load of stuff put in ?

Coventry Rebuilt, Look, I didn't mean to be rude in past posts, but how do you hope to capture the old city when it changed so many times that historians can't capture it. There's been several attempts lately on the tv of shops, of wartime programmes, and families of the fifties but they are so far out and so many mistakes of what I term recently. I have recently seen the sea rolled back and tanks in the channel that solved the Omaha problem, but I still like the story of what happened rather than today's version. Sorry, I'm getting carried away. Butcher Row was changing constantly in my short time, and you will never catch the warmth and the spirit of the people, the atmosphere and the heart of the street and without, you have lost everything. To me, your attempt is cold and unshapely, not the Coventry that it was. But good luck. I believe I went to the Rex cinema about five times in all - just another flicks.

Loving Pete's work - for me, his films stitch the 'old' Coventry together for a better understanding of what we've all lost. Superb work!