Artist’s Scott Kindall work “Water Works” truly is a magnificent piece of design. According to the artist “Water Works is a data-visualizations and mapping of the San Francisco water infrastructure: the pipes, hydrants and treatment plants that comprise the circulatory network for the city.”
In order to achieve this result, Kindall had to go through many stages. Firstly, the artist enlisted the Department of Public Works in San Francisco to get all the necessary mapping information of the San Francisco sewage system. According to Kindall “The data consists of many, many fields but the important ones are the manholes (nodes) and the pipes that connect them. The nodes are geolocated, which means that I can map it out as X, Y values in the 3D space. And each pipe indicates an upstream and downstream node, so there are connections between the different nodes.”
Then, the dataset was edited and cleaned from any unnecessary data and two CSV files were generated. Furthermore, the 3d rendering took place with the help of OpenFrameworks. Finally, Kindall reshaped the model to better represent the shape of the pipes and manhole chambers. The two STL files were exported and were checked in Meshlab before going for 3d printing.
After much experimentation with the color of the model, the final model was mounted on a wooden base and was exposed. Absolutely impressive!
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