3D maps

With Arkio you can load maps with 3D buildings for most cities in the world.

When working on new proposals having a site reference at scale can save a lot of preparation work and help give your designs the right scale and context. Arkio's build-in 3D map feature can be found in the utility menu at the bottom of the main menu. 

The keyboard can be used to search for a place or address in the world and the suggestions on top can be clicked to load it on the table and change the sun's longitude and latitude accordingly.

The size of the map and your Arkio working surface can be adjusted by using the edit tool or by loading a custom 3D model on the table. Just hover your edit laser to the side of the terrain you like to resize and drag the surface out to make it bigger and in to make the site smaller.

Arkio can generate 3D buildings of any location in the world using the data publicly available on OpenStreetMaps. These 3D buildings can be activated by clicking the buildings tab in the map UI. Sometimes 3D building information is are not publicly available for that city on OSM. Buildings will then extrude with a default height of 3 meters (~10 feet). The OSM database gets updated regularly so we can expect more cities to be available in 3D in the months to come.

When your map is not in the correct position, (e.g. you need to align it to your imported Revit model) you can update the location of the map using the pan tool on the map interface. This will allow you to pan the map in the direction you like by grabbing it with your laser, mouse, or touch.

When a site needs to be cleared of existing 3D buildings that are still in the OpenStreetMaps Database you can erase parts of the imported building by drawing a box around the buildings you like to erase. You can create as many boxes as you need and can reset your erased buildings using the reset button.

The loaded map and location will also be updated in multi-user sessions so everyone can see the same data. Loading an address will automatically adjust the Solar and Time settings for your solar studies. This will be visible by the changing orientation of the shadow.

3D map and sloped landscapes

Arkio site is are flat by default but by carving voids in the ground, the map will be projected on the carving. This map projection can also be added to other Arkio shapes so you can make simple hills using distorted volumes. This gives you the freedom to create simple sloped landscapes and terrains in Arkio that might be essential for your site's experience.

Rotating your 3D creations to the map

The map is loaded with the north-facing up at the back of the table. There is no way to rotate the map/skybox so the orientation when importing/exporting from Arkio remains fixed. If your site/creation or the default import rotation does not align orthogonally to the table

There are two ways to work around this:

You can grab shapes placed in Arkio with your hand and align them to the map at any angle you like. The next time you model something on or near that shape it will follow the orientation of that rotated shape instead.

You can also add a north rotation in your original exported model before you export to Arkio if you want them to always come in oriented correctly on the map at placement.