New 'streetscape' envisioned

Downtown St. Helena, CA

According to an article written up by David Stoneberg in the local newspaper, the St. Helena Star, a group that calls themselves the Downtown Renaissance Committee, a sub-committee of the St. Helena Chamber of Commerce, has formed to "bring beauty to the downtown area" by redesigning St. Helena's downtown with new sidewalks, more street lamps, hanging flowers, new curbs and "parklets"- that is, expanded sidewalk areas that "build out the sidewalk" to provide a bench for sitting or a table and chairs for outdoor dining.

Animation courtesy of PacficHDS

3D Virtual Design Technology was hired to survey 2,000 feet of city blocks using 3D Laser Scanning Technology to capture every building facade, sidewalk, streetlamp - basically, everything that is visible to the laser beam's line of sight.  This resulted in a cohesive 3D image made up of over 87 million points of reference and is millimeter accurate.  The above animation presents a visual 3-dimensional stroll down Main Street.

Main Street, St. Helena

In order to raise funds for the City improvements, a partial 3D model was created directly from the scan data.  As stated by the Committee Chair, "the idea is to create a Master Plan for the entire project, and to get bids to build the first of seven sections to show what the new design would look like.  I don't think we can raise the money without showing sponsors what they are paying for," he added.

The scan data also provided the blueprint to plan and design new public restrooms.  The City of St. Helena will be able to use this valuable data for any future City improvements, maintenance, planning and most importantly as a digitally documented archive of the downtown area.