New Tech turns Belton 3-D

Tuesday, 08 May 2012 by Matthew Girard

New Tech High freshman Brynna Brooks, Mariah Trevino and Deran Tolbert work on their 3-D model of the Belton Fire Depatment Station No. 2.Students in the Belton Independent School District are once again on the cutting edge.

In Mark William's Digital Media 1 class at New Tech@Waskow, students have given the city of Belton a three-dimensional presence on the Internet.

The class is an introduction to visual graphics, logo design, page layout design, audio and visual editing and 3-D modeling.

During the 3-D modeling unit, students picked prominent buildings of Belton and made three-dimensional renderings in a program called Google Sketchup, which are then uploaded to Google Earth.

"They chose from the prominent buildings in Belton, such as the courthouse or The Gin or a UMHB building," Williams said. "They were able to pick which one they wanted to do."

Each person in the group had a specific responsibility, including a reporter, a 3-D modeler and a graphic designer.

After the building was chosen by the group, the reporter interviewed the owners of the building for more information about the history of the building, the 3-D modeler took pictures and used those to make the 3-D image and the graphic designer created a 3-D poster and a QR code.

"They interviewed the owners of the buildings to gather some information and history and research behind the buildings," Williams said. "From there, they are video editing the interviews. Some went out and took pictures of the building and using those to make the 3-D models of the buildings."

Freshman Prince Fisher, who was the 3-D modeler in his group who chose Cochran, Blair & Potts, said piecing the model together was the most difficult part of the process for him.

"The most difficult part was matching the angles of the building from the photos," Fisher said.

Williams said his class' project is the first time anyone has done 3-D renderings of Belton.

"This is the first time anyone, that I'm aware of, that has made 3-D models of the buildings that we have in Belton," Williams said.

Williams said the students gave positive feedback about being a part of something no one had ever done.

"They feel like they are digital pioneers in the fact that they get to do this," Williams said.

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