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Marco Gualdrini
GEOgrafica

GEOgrafica is involved in digital terrain representation for environmental impact evaluations, engineering applications and multimedia. They pay particular attention to the correspondence between virtual images and the real world. For this purpose, GIS technicians pluriennal expertise is used to transform vector data, directly surveyed with GPS or derived from digital cartography, into photorealistic images. We also use aereal photos and appropriately shot trees images to precisely rebuild the involved ecosystems. "World Construction Set and Visual Nature Studio let us manage DEM and CAD/GIS data and create photorealistic visualizations with numeric precision." Marco is an authorized 3D Nature Reseller. All images are copyright Marco Gualdrini unless otherwise specified.
	Proposed Irrigation Basin These images are of a proposed irrigation basin in the Northern Appenines, Italy. The location is Rio Albonello, Brisighella, RA. Note: The images are in order so that the pre-construction image is followed by the same camera post image.

	Briglia Diaterna This is a series of before and after the development of an area in Italy.

	Irrigation Basin These images are a series of "before-after" project, for an irrigation basin. "The images here weren't retouched at all with Photoshop: the new infinite resolution TFX and Ecosystems, combined with Phong shading, really ROCK!!! The DEM is only 20 m in res, but the ecosystems and TFX attached to vectors do a great job. The renders are realized with a Fractal Depth of 0! I love these images, they were created in only 2 hours of work and they are extremely nice." Marco Gualdrini

	Alaskan Vista This is a series of completely synthetic and idealized versions of an Alaskan landscape. DEMs are created using textures, then displacement in VNS3. All texturing, ecosystems, streams, snow, sky, haze, volumetric clouds are VNS3 with Phong shading, intensive bump mapping and displacement. No Photoshop postprocessing.

	Phong Displacement This set of images was created as an abstract landscape, to test the new VNS 3 phong shading applied to ground in cooperation with displacement and bump maps. In the terrain, there is a displacement map to increase the detail of the DEM, then a displacement texture applied to water, then intensively modulated fractal, turbolence and pebble textures applied to ground to simulate microtexturing of the ground. Only procedural textures were used in this project. Volumetric clouds aren't a new feature of VNS but they always look great.

	Karakorum Ridge, K2 Marco put together tis image that was requested by "Scoiattoli di Cortina" which is an Italian climbers association. In 2004 this group completed a commemorative trail in Karakorum, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first climbing in the world of K2. This first successful climb was completed by an Italian expedition in 1954, guided by the famous geologist Ardito Desio and composed of important and strong climbers like Walter Bonatti, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli. The last two gained the summit of K2 on July 31st 1954. Squirrels of Cortina completed a very long trail on the Karakorum ridge, and Mr. Lino Lacedelli, at the age of 79, did a part of the trail on foot reaching the base camp of K2 at Concordia on the Baltoro glacier.

	Dam Lake Project -Original Images taken from a dam visualization project. Pre and post construction images are presented for three different view points.

	Irrigation Basin, Italy This is a project for the building an irrigation basin, with its pre-basins, in an area of the Northern Apennine in Tuscany, Mugello area (between Florence and Faenza). The project was first developed by local Consorzio di Bonifica (reclamation consortium) in January 2008. The elevation data is a LIDAR survey, the ground texture is an orthophoto 0.5 m resolution. Marco prepared several renderings of the project along with calculations about cut and fills volumes. The project was presented to the local authority and rejected for hydraulic problems. Some changes have been introduced in the project and a new set of renders was requested. The new renders were much easier to produce because VNS3 has solved the problems that prevent Marco from using VNS completely a year ago for finishing the job.

	Italian Round About This series of images is a rondo (round about) in open country. It was designed to solve some security and danger problems on a road which leads trucks to a quarry near the creek, in the lower valley, on the Apennines mountains in Northern Italy. The fifth and sixth images were rendered about 2 years ago. The customer returned and asked Marco to do a more detailed version of the render, adding a wall and a terrain terrace with plants and flowers instead of the single mega-wall of the original render. The original renderings were of a preliminary project, the new one is the definite project. Marco said, "As the old project was almost complete, I needed only to add a Terraffector and change the Wall to produce a new, more detailed rendering in about 1 day of work. The addition of 3d models of cars and truck gave to render a better quality." The DEM was derived from a topographic survey integrated with contours digitized over a paper map. The street is a linear terraffector linked to a 3d vector, the ecosystem is a standard VNS ecosystem totally based on the rules of nature.

	Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park -Italy The Italian Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park (www.dolomitipark.it) contracted with GEOgrafica to create this animation in VNS. The area displayed is about 40 km wide and 30 km tall, the DEMs were completely generated with VNS at a grid size of 5m x 5 m from vector contours. Different datasets at lower resolution, with inserts at higher resolution, were created with DEM Merger and used for a quicker rendering. The terrain is draped with digital ortophotos from italian Compagnia Generale Riprese Aeree, and 3d ecosystems corresponding to different forestry ecotypes where applied, basing on a very detailed GIS landuse coverage, where single species of plants where described as DBF attributes. Search queries and Thematic Maps were heavily used for applying correct ecosystems to corresponding areas.

	Brisighella Marco says, "I have also elaborated a topographic and geological map of a geosite on which we are working in these days. The final output is very nice. VNS was used for managing different kind of elevation data (laser scanner, GPS, elevation lines), merge them in a single DEM, and then render the relief map, in some different flavours. Then, the vector part was done in Illustrator (with the help of MAPublisher)." He then continued, "I like them a lot (it was appreciated a lot by the customer, that is a local government institution, Regione Emilia-Romagna). I know that a lot of work was done outside VNS, but without VNS I couldn't manage all these data and have such a nice result."

	Valtellina Italy These images are an aerial, artistic view of Valtellina and Valchiavenna, two valleys in the lower Alps. These views were elaborated for Istituto Geografico De Agostini, a very important cartographic institution in Italy. The images will be used for a tour map of wine sites in the central Alps.

	Glacier Animation Images These are still images taken from an animation of a glacier chaging over time.

	Alta Badia Maps These images are from another cartographic project focused on Alta Badia, a wonderful dolomitic valley in Alps (Northern Italy). This maps are done in VNS and then enhanced in Photoshop and Illustrator.

	Irno River Reclamation Project of Irno River near Salerno Italy, a very degradated suburban area. The recalmation is based on the building of small and middle size lakes along the river, with barrages that cross the river with preservation of black poplars and wetland enviroment. The textures are a mix of aerophotos ortorectified with GIS software and alpha channelized to be overlayed, black/white ortophotos for the bump, low quality color orthophoto+B7W ortophoto for far areas, and Shapefiles with attached ecosystems (thematic mapping) for woods and water. Several images at different resolutions were used. The DEM is created from 1:25.000 contour vecors for the far areas, with a cell size of 20 m, while for the closest area is based on a topographical survey. I used DEM merger to join the dems together.

	Libano Map Marco used the Ultimate Earth DVD to begin this cartography project focused on an area near the Mediterranean Sea.

	Salerno These images were generated for an International contest for the reclaimation of an ex-quarry in the city area of Salerno (southern Italy). The sea visible in the second image is the Salerno gulf (the famous "Costa Azzurra"), near Neaples and the Vesuvio. This solution includes mining reclaimation, landscape planning, architectural planning. Our group (I was one of the planners) was one of the 6 selected among the 40 partecipating to the contest, for the 2nd phase of the contest. We have great hopes to win! :). Vector data: GIS in various formats and projections, mainly UTM33 and GaussBoaga zone 2.

	Wetlands These Images are taken from a project focusing on wetlands near Montepulciano, Italy. Marco prepared a very large contract forcusing on ecosystem reconstruction.

	Actual State These renderings show the actual situation. 3d objects where created and texturized in Lightwave 7, and imported as UV maps. Trees are Xfrog-derived foliage clips. DEM was built in WCS6 from a detailed survey of the area near the bridge. Ground textures, land use and grass derive from rectified photos (taken by Marco on the site) and the final result is really very similar to real place.

	Original State Theses images show a site where an old bridge is facing a new, provisional bridge, built to allow trucks to go to a nearby gravel cave. These three renderings show the situation before the building of the provisional bridge. 3d objects where created and texturized in Lightwave 7, and imported as UV maps. Trees are Xfrog-derived foliage clips. DEM was built in WCS6 from a detailed survey of the area near the bridge. Ground textures, land use and grass derive from rectified photos (taken by Marco on the site) and the final result is really very similar to real place.

	Proposed State These renderings show the situation in the proposed situation. 3d objects where created and texturized in Lightwave 7, and imported as UV maps. Trees are Xfrog-derived foliage clips. DEM was built in WCS6 from a detailed survey of the area near the bridge. Ground textures, land use and grass derive from rectified photos (taken by Marco on the site) and the final result is really very similar to real place.

	Aerial Bridge Marco prepared a study of a proposed bridge and the surrounding area.

	Aerial Bridge 2 A different view of the proposed bridge project.

	Bridge Close Up A close up of the bridge from the bridge project.

	Bridge Close Up 2 Another close up view of the above project.

	Volumetrics Marco used the new WCS6 volumetrics feature to show the fog and sun rays shining through these Xfrog trees.

	Mountain Lake This Lake image was created entirely in World Construction Set 5. Again, 3D Nature would like to thank Marco for rendering the image at 4500 by 3000 pixels so that it could be printed in poster format for display at SigGraph 2000.

	Oasis This Oasis scene was created using World Construction Set 5. 3D Nature would like to thank Marco for rendering the image at 4500 by 3000 pixels so that it could be printed in poster format for display at SigGraph 2000.

	City Park After This is the same area as the previous image after terraforming in WCS. A pond, several tree essences and a new walk path were added. This scene was entirely built and rendered in WCS, using ArcView GIS data for the placing of every single feature.

	City Park Before This image shows the area chosen for the building of a city park, before terraforming (see next image). The land is semi-natural, left as uncultivated.