News Feature
Disorientation pullout Inside
Sports
Arts & Culture
Junior Boys find alternative inspiration 18
Bears look to break Bison 24
gateway September 7th, 2011
Issue No. 2
Volume 102
THE
TH E O F F IC IA L STUDE NT NE WS PA P E R AT TH E U N I V ER S I T Y OF A LBERTA
NEW LOOK FOR OLD ARTS A three-dimensional model of the Arts and Convocation Hall building was created this summer by a team of students and was one of many campus structures digitized for Google Earth. supplied
University builds 3D models for virtual campus experience
council Opinion
Impeachment bill removes Students hired by university to photograph and design Google Earth buildings accountability Aaron Yeo
news editor @yeoaaron As another year gets going, thousands of new students who have never seen the University of Alberta campus before now have a new tool to help them learn their way around — one of the most detailed campus map systems in North America, built by a group of four students. The team of students, led by Jennifer Chesney, executive director of university web strategy, has created a set of three-dimensional models of buildings on all five U of A campuses that are being implemented into Google Earth. A set of interactive two-dimensional maps were also built for the recently redesigned U of A website. “On our old site all we had was just a pretty rudimentary map,” Chesney said. “With a 3D map, you really get a good feeling for the relationship between buildings, (like) which are taller (and) how far apart they are.” Chesney wanted to make an interactive map of campus a priority as part of the relaunched website, in both 2D and 3D. Industrial design students Veronica Krawcewicz, Max
Amerongen, Larry Kwok and Mathew Hale were hired for the summer to make that happen. “It was really important to have students intimately involved with the project,” Chesney said.
Sometimes they tell us that a building (we submitted) doesn’t exist ... and then we have to send them photos to prove that there is a giant building where we say it is. Veronica krawcewicz
industrial design student
The students were responsible for taking photos of campus buildings to help them generate 3D models and textures that were then submitted to Google Earth. While other institutions like Stanford University and the University of Toronto have done the same, their maps aren’t nearly as detailed as the ones the U of A students
were tasked with making. Windows have reflections, walls have vines, and distinguishable features like the equations on the side of Natural Resource Engineering Facility and the Education building mural were all included in the textures. However, the team says the quality did suffer due to the compression Google uses. When dealing with Google bureaucracy, Krawcewicz said there were many issues in the approval process. “Sometimes they tell us that a building (we submitted) doesn’t exist, because their satellite photos show a big hole, or shows a construction site or something, and then we have to send them photos to prove that there is a giant building where we say it is,” Krawcewicz said. The recent BDes grad said that there were a few buildings that were already on Google Earth, that were probably made by other students as unofficial projects, but their detail was lacking. Google would then reject the newer models the team made since they already existed in their system.
Student Council almost did something right last week. Almost. In January, 2010, then-SU president Kory Mathewson resigned, citing “personal reasons.” The Gateway later found out the truth that council tried to hide via an in-camera meeting: the four vice-presidents of the time essentially forced him out, finding his performance to be lacking. If you’re not caught up on Robert’s Rules jargon, “in-camera” means that only council members are privy to the debate. Any guests, including journalists, of council must leave the chambers, and councillors are forbidden to disclose information to outsiders.
PLEASE SEE MAPS PAGE 7
PLEASE SEE IMPEACHMENT PAGE 16
Ryan Bromsgrove
opinion editor