The Town of Qualicum Beach has been digitized.
At last Monday’s (Aug. 21) Qualicum Beach council meeting, planning director Luke Sales said staff had completed the 3-D digital model of the town’s uptown core.
Mayor Teunis Westbroek had previously asked staff to create the model after a resident brought forward the idea of a scale model of the Village Neighbourhood and its commercial core.
Westbroek said the model could also be used for proposed developments, which could be dropped into the model to see how they fit into the town.
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Sales said the project came in significant under budget because the town’s GIS staff found a way to develop the 3-D model based on existing imagery.
“Through the process that staff found, that was sent to a company with specialized software,” said Sales, adding it saved a lot of time and energy.
For now, Sales said, the model is colourless blocks and the town shows up as a grouping of white boxes. According to the agenda document, the blocks are “relatively accurate heights, dimensions and elevation.” The model also has the ability to do shadow projects for any day or time, which would allow staff to understand the impacts of new construction on existing buildings.
“When and if the town updates its imagery with higher-resolution imagery, those images can be applied to the building faces and it would have a more recognizable appearance,” he said.
Story tips: lauren.collins@pqbnews.com