YSU students create 3-D map

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — It started out as a class project for some geography students, but some 18 months and 4,000 hours of work later, Youngstown State University has a full-fledged 3-D campus map.

It’s an interactive virtual map available on YSU’s Web site at www.ysu.edu that allows viewers to “fly” around buildings, examine how campus structures interact with each other and look at a three-dimensional view of entire sections of campus.

Students in a Geographic Information Systems 2 class were required to develop their own GIS project, and one group chose to do a 3-D computer model of campus, said Dr. Bradley Shellito, assistant professor of geography, explaining how the project took shape.

They estimated the size and shapes of campus buildings and superimposed them on an aerial photograph, coming up with “a good representation of what campus kind of looked like,” Shellito said.

The model was interactive so the viewer could fly around campus, he said.

The buildings were just block shapes with no details, however.

Still, it was impressive enough that Dr. Craig S. Campbell, chairman of the Geography Department, told Dr. Thomas Maraffa, special assistant to the president, about the project.

After Maraffa saw it, he told YSU’s president, Dr. David C. Sweet, and Sweet asked if the project could be developed into a full 3-D map that could be used in developing the campus master plan, Shellito said.

Sweet came up with the funds to hire students to work as interns on the project, Campbell said, noting the cost came to about $25,000.

The GIS 2 class project began in spring 2005, and the work on the 3-D map began in October 2005.

Eleven students worked on the map, gaining research and real-world experience while earning about $8 an hour. Three others provided some technical assistance.

They were able to use developing technology by the online information giant Google to do much more accurate representations of campus buildings, particularly the different brick work and design elements.

They even went out and counted the number of bleachers at Stambaugh Stadium, Shellito said, adding that various 3-D objects such as statues and greenery were added to the final version of the map — so were some significant privately owned structures around the edges of campus.

YSU is basically on the side of a hill, and there were some real challenges to reflect the topography and how building design fit into it, Campbell said.

The task was completed earlier this year, although Shellito said the map will never be completely finished because there are plans to update it as the face of campus changes.

The proposed new building for the Williamson College of Business Administration will make a major impact on the southern edge of campus, he said.

The project gave students a lot of experience they would never have gotten in the classroom and a lot of specialty training in 3-D design, Shellito said.

“It’s going to make the students much more marketable [in the workplace],” Campbell added.

The campus benefits by having an interactive 3-D map that can be used for planning purposes and even student recruitment, Shellito said.

It also resulted in the addition of a 3-D modeling class and another GIS class to the geography department’s curriculum, he said.

gwin@vindy.com