A better way to enjoy shopping centres

I know many of us have an aversion to shopping centres but we at UKMap quite like them. They offer quite a challenge to us not only in mapping their exterior but also the interior complete with the multi-level aspect too.

Well this is a sneak preview of the results of our efforts to incorporate all the retail information into UKMap; here is Brent Cross shopping centre in glorious 3D. Created using ESRI ArcGIS and Sketch Up V6.0.

Video of this here on the new UKMap YouTube channel

So far we have mapped the exterior of all 68 major shopping centres across greater London as part of the UKMap product and have now completed the internal structures of 23 of them.

Each shop is named, classified and coloured, above, according to its retail category; one of 110 retail categories inside UKMap, these include for example, department stores, coffee shops, florists, mobile phone shops etc.

With building footprint, name, address, retail classification and 3D structure this offers a unique combination of GIS and retail information visualised in a way we hope makes such complex data seem simple . Now to finish the rest of the shopping centres!