A number of years ago … um … the calculator says 38 … I needed a way to measure structures from photographs. (I was working for an architect, surveying buildings in West Philadelphia that he was under contract to rehabilitate for new commercial usage.) I could measure all of the interior spaces and locate windows and doors and structural columns, etc. using my 100' tape measure, but measuring the elevations was a different matter. So I would do my best to take a few 35mm photos from across the street as well as a closer shot of just the first floor and include the “Measuring Stick” that I had made.

Back in the office at my drawing board, photographic prints and a pair of dividers in hand, generating that elevation drawing was a piece of cake, as I had a reference for feet as well as inches to set the dividers at and then just “walk up the face of the building.”

I present the Measuring Stick!



It’s a six-foot piece of 2”x2” lumber, sanded, primed, and taped off in foot increments and painted white, then re-taped and painted black. The same was then done on each end, taping it off in one inch increments. Even from across the street, the contrast between the black and the white makes it a very easy tool to refer to when measuring structures (or anything else, actually) from a photograph, as long as you remember to lean it up against the structure or freight car or trackside detail in question prior to exposing the film!

As an example, here is the entryway to my house …



… and one of the front corners of the house …



… you can figure out the dimensions for yourself.

Of course, once you have the dividers set to one foot, or six feet, or “five foot two,” you can measure both height and width.

It’s an easy tool to build and everyone will want to know … “What’s that?!!”

Thanks biL. I've thought about using something like this ever since I became interested in a railroad viaduct in my region and was trying to determine it's height.

One question though - it would seem that the higher the structure, the less accurate the dividers would become as you walked up. Did you find this a problem?

Matt

The structures that I was measuring were up to four stories tall.

There didn't seem to be any discrepancy over that distance. Of course, once you have measurements of certain things like a window for instance, at lower levels, you already know theat dimension for each time i ist repeated on the way up. The possible exception would be in some architecure, especially that of the 1800's and very early 1900's, windows on the top floor were often not as tall as the windows on the lower floors, but since all that stuff had been measured from the inside.

I never used the Measuring Stick on a trestle or a stone viaduct, mostly just on buildings. A friend (since childhood) modeled the DL&W. One summer up at the summer cottage in the Pocono Mountains, he and I drove down to the DL&W Cresco station (a "tall" one-story structure) and photgraphed it with the Stick from every possible direction and also a few "detail shots' with the Stick (doors, etc.) and then I drew up a set of elevations when back home and mailed them to him. A fine little Cresco Station lives on his layout, as does a model of his family's summer cottage.

It just a basic tool that's helpful to use when gathering info for a scratchbuild project.

Don't forget a few other tricks when "taking measurements" from photographs -- yours or those from books. Certain architectural elements remain basically constant and have over time. The basic building brick has been basically the same size for a century or two. Architectural Standards dictate the height of many standard components as standard doors (6'-8"), ornamental doors notwithstanding. It can be a tedious task, but I have counted brick courses up the face of a building to determine its height before when the Stick had not been available.

Have fun ... keep building structures!

One thing to remember is that the taller the structure, or the more angled your shot, the bigger the distortion/perspective issues are. That might make it hard to get an accurate measurement of a really tall or wide building.

Fortunately, many of the digital photo packages allow you to correct distortion, which will lead to a more accurate estimate.

biL - have you tried using Google Sketchup? I'd be interested in your opinion...

Andrew

MasonJar Wrote:... biL - have you tried using Google Sketchup? I'd be interested in your opinion... Andrew

Google Sketchup? What is that? I have not heard of it ... but then, I don't get out much and when I do, it seems I'm surrounded by idiots, morons and fools!

My next door neighbor (I've been here almost two years and this is the first time I've ever seen him) told me much more than I ever wanted to know the other afternoon about some Virtual Reality game that he plays (admittedly over 12 hours a day ... and is a wealthy man in whatever currency they use in the game) and couldn't understand why else I would have a computer if I don't play games! This as he stood in the side door of his garage in a pair of blue and white striped boxer shorts scratching his substantial naked stomach, while smoking a cigarette, which he flipped out onto my lawn when he was finished. [I rest my case.]

I shall have to find this "Sketchup" and see what it can do ... thanks, Andrew ... I'll have to get back to you on that one!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://sketchup.google.com/">http://sketchup.google.com/</a><!-- m -->

Versions for PC and Mac available.

Andrew

Great idea biL. Since I am building some stuff from the prototype, I definitely need something like that.

Browsing through an old copy of RMC, I ran across an article on using perspective to help scale distances on photos. The further something is from us, the shorter it looks. Using "perspective lines", any verical distance can be scaled as long as one vertical dimension is known or assumed, such as an entry door to a house is typically 6' - 8" tall. The other vertical dimensions can be found by using a ratio of the distances on the photo. Horizontal distances also shrink, and can be approximated based on the ratio of vertical distances on the photo.

I am thinking that unless the photo is taken directly out from a corner, then each wall will have its own scaling factor. This could be found by using the corners of the building as long as they are all the same height in reality.

The ol' Measuring Stick has some miles on it, that's for sure. I haven't really used it in a while but saw it leaning in the corner of the garage while taking the recycling out a couple weeks ago and thought it might be a helpful tool to some of you fellas so I took a couple photos and wrote a couple paragraphs.

On the plus side, while setting up one of the shots I noticed how several spiders had commandeered my entryway as a "trapping dinner" hunting ground and a couple families of wasps and mud daubers had also set up housekeeping in there as well. Immediately after the photo session, I hooked up the hose to the bib on the front of the house, set the nozzle at "stream" and cleaned all of that unsightliness out of the entryway as well as a splash of the hose up in the soffit areas.

The house is much more presentable to "walk-up" guests ... should I ever have one.