Virtual JHU

Hello Hopkins! It's been a while since we talked about one of our earliest and still most successful projects: Virtual JHU. Now that the Class of 2018 decisions have been released, it's time to get the baby Blue Jays acquainted with our campus. What better way to do that than with an interactive and informative virtual campus model?

The Virtual JHU Homewood Campus! Notice that you can click the name of any building on the right hand side and the map will rotate and zoom to that location on the map. 

To view Virtual JHU, you will have to install the Google Earth plug-in, but the link is provided for you on the page. Once you get to the website main page, the plugin will take you right to where Hopkins is on Earth. The zooming in part is only a small detail of what makes this map different from the others. Alternatively, you can view the shells of buildings and their basic description via Google Earth itself. While on the Google Earth page, simply type in Johns Hopkins University, and most of the models will appear right there through Google. If you look closely at the building descriptions in the Model tab, you will see that credit for the model and information is given to JHU. They really mean JHU STS.

Using the tools on the website is intuitive for anyone who is familiar with the format of Google Maps. The zoom bar, directional compass, and observation angle are all changeable according to what the user would like to view. This makes the interface user-friendly, perfect for a potential freshmen or a parent looking at the details of campus.

Once the site has loaded (and it may take a while, apologies), you are able to move about a 3D virtual version of the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus. Each building seen was modeled using the Google SketchUp tool by out STS team years ago. We have since used this same tool for modeling the New Clinical Building of Johns Hopkins Hospital and modeling virtual dorm rooms for the Housing and Dining Department based on the success of the first virtual JHU project.

Each building you see on the Hopkins campus comes with a short description of the building's history, who it was named for, and, if applicable, what department and equipment are housed there. An example of Mason Hall is shown below.

The history and function of Mason Hall can be found by clicking on the yellow dot that appears on the building.

You can also go inside of the buildings and explore every floor's layout. Here I have done that with the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, the largest building on the Homewood campus.The rooms in which classes are held are marked with a purple box, and the restrooms are the green boxes. Sometimes clicking on a purple box will even tell you which class is in that room, if it's a large lecture group! The rooms will also display what equipment is available for that room in the Equipment tab.

This is a pretty neat tool whether or not you attend classes here because it allows you to explore the resources and the scale of what Hopkins has. You can learn about the campus and its history by reading through the descriptions, and also look inside of the dorm buildings and scope out a potential new home.

As of now, Virtual JHU is getting ready for a renovation that will include new buildings like Brody Learning Commons and renamed old ones like Croft Hall. This will happen within the coming year thanks to the dedication of STS employees. Keep your eyes out for more announcements!

Building Virtual JHU

So, how do we make all those buildings you see in Virtual JHU? Here's a quick run-down:

The primary 3D modeling program we use is Google Sketchup. Sketchup is convenient for a couple reasons. For one thing, there's a basic version that you can download for free. (Right now we're using the Pro version, which you have to pay for.) Unlike other 3D modeling programs, learning Sketchup is pretty easy, and it is remarkably powerful given how easy it is to use. The other thing that's nice about Sketchup is that it integrates very well with Google Earth, which is what we're using to present Virtual JHU. If you're interested in 3D modeling at all, I highly recommend getting started with Sketchup. Google has also come out with a tool called Building Maker, which is the quickest way to make buildings for Google Earth.

The first step for modeling any building for Virtual JHU is getting the floor plans. We are deeply indebted to the Office of Facilities Management for providing floor plans to us for Virtual JHU. Once we have the CAD drawings for each floor, we import them into separate Sketchup files. (The ability to import .dwg files is only offered in Sketchup Pro now.) We then pull up the walls outlined in the 2D floor plans to create a basic model of the floor, finishing by adding a floor slab underneath.

Once we have made models for each individual floor we stack them on top of each other in a single Sketchup file. Then we make a roof for the model based on photographs, first-hand observations, and (sometimes) measurements. At that point we've built a model that looks roughly like the real building (except very plain).

The next step is to begin photo-texturing the model. When we started modeling the buildings currently in Virtual JHU we took photos of each individual feature of the building (windows, doors, brick, etc.), used Photoshop to crop them, and then positioned them on the model in Sketchup, tiling materials like brick and marble siding as necessary.

This process resulted in models that were high in detail, but also in file size and are a drag on users' graphics cards. That's one of the reasons we have to continue to work on increasing the performance of Virtual JHU.

To help with performance, one of our programmers wrote a script that removed interior geometry from the Sketchup models, enabling us to present exterior-only versions for all the buildings (until you "open up" a building to see its individual floors). The script caused some issues with some of the models, damaging their materials. (You can notice some pretty significant issues with some of the buildings.)

To solve this problem, now once we have a building stacked we create a shell made of simple planes, on which to apply the textures. This reduces the geometry in the exterior-only versions of the models without having to use the "gutting" script. We have also been trying to use lower-resolution imagery that isn't quite as detailed.

So there you go, that's how we make our models in a nutshell. I'll leave other parts of Virtual JHU to another post. If you have any comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear them.

New Video Content Added to Virtual JHU

We've just added some new video content to Virtual JHU for some of the dorm buildings. The videos come from the Hopkins CRIBS series produced by Hopkins Interactive. In the series, current Hopkins students show you around their dorm rooms, giving you a little glimpse of life at Hopkins. Hopkins Interactive produces a number of videos like this and also has students who write blogs. Apart from actually coming to the campus itself and living there for a few days, I think that the best way to find out what it's like at Hopkins is by visiting their website.

Over the next couple of weeks keep an eye out for more videos like these popping up. We'd also love to hear your feedback about what you'd like to see in Virtual JHU.

Virtual JHU 2.0 Released!

Today we released version 2.0 of Virtual JHU, which contains a lot of new features. Keep reading for more information.

We are happy to announce the release of Virtual JHU 2.0. We have made a lot of changes and added many new features for this release. The most obvious change is the new website design, for which we can thank STS’s team of web designers: Allison Tse, Lia Cefalu, Steve Han, and Lavanya Sivakumar.

Depending on the speed of your internet connection and your computer's graphics card, you may experience performance difficulties. We are working to decrease the amount of time it takes to load Virtual JHU and hope you will be a little patient. One thing to note is that once you have loaded Virtual JHU, it will load quicker within the same browser session.

Here is the full list of new features:

1. Google Earth Browser Plugin

For the first version of Virtual JHU, the models were contained in a Google Earth file (kmz) that users downloaded and then opened in Google Earth. Version 2.0 utilizes the Google Earth browser plugin to display the Virtual JHU models inside the user’s browser window.

2. Realistic Terrain

If you have ever visited the Homewood Campus, you know that the terrain there is unique, to say the least. Virtual JHU now includes a realistic representation of the terrain and accurately places buildings in the terrain.


3. New Models – Including Interiors!

Almost all of the Homewood Campus buildings have been remodeled for version 2.0. Why? Because we wanted to include the interiors of the buildings as well as the exteriors. Now you can look inside a building and see its individual rooms. This is great for locating classrooms, offices, and many other relevant places on campus.

4. New Levels of Data

As mentioned, you can now view individual rooms by clicking on their icon inside the Earth viewer. When you do this, you will get information associated with that room: if it’s an office, you will see a description of the office, a link to its website, and maybe a video talking about what goes on there. Classrooms contain a list of classes that meet there, and dining locations around campus are tagged, showing hours, payment options (Dining Dollars, J Cash, etc.), and more. In the coming months we will be adding more kinds of data as well as extending our coverage of tagged data. If you would like input in what data is included in Virtual JHU, email us. We need your help!