Windsor Road

Eye-kon produced thirteen verified images across eleven agreed viewpoints, seven at AVR Level 1 and six at AVR Level 3. The two strategic Windsor views were produced at both levels, so a reader can move between a measured outline and a rendered image of the same frame.

The viewpoint framework was drawn once and used twice. Twelve positions were agreed across this site and the neighbouring multi-storey car park scheme on Albert Street. Because the two came forward as separate applications, each assessment carries the viewpoints relevant to its own site. Two of those positions, on Windsor Road and Chalvey Road East, show nothing of the car park site but do show this one, and they are among the eleven here.

Production Process

1 | Photography and survey

Baseline photography for the town centre viewpoints was shot on a full frame DSLR at a fixed eye level of 1.6 metres, timed for clear weather. Camera positions and ground control points were surveyed using a Leica Total Station and GNSS equipment, referenced to OSGB36, with control points spread deliberately through foreground, middle distance and background.

Windsor was handled differently. Photography inside the Castle grounds is tightly controlled, so the two strategic views use the approved camera locations and survey package issued by Slough Borough Council. That avoided further work on a sensitive site and kept the baseline consistent with imagery the authority had already accepted.

2 | 3D modelling and camera matching

The architectural model supplied by FAL Architects was positioned using Ordnance Survey coordinates and checked against the surveyed framework, with the highest point of the proposal at +74.5 metres above Ordnance Datum.

Working at full Ordnance Survey coordinate values introduces floating point drift in 3ds Max, so the scene origin was moved to a local reference point. Virtual cameras were rebuilt to match the lenses used on site, a 24 mm tilt shift for the street level views and a 50 mm for the two strategic ones, then aligned to the surveyed control points using camera matching and parallax analysis.

3 | Material and lighting calibration

Lighting was reconstructed with the V-Ray Sun and Sky system, set to the site's latitude and longitude and to the date and time recorded for each photograph, so the shadows in the model fall where the shadows in the photograph fall. Materials were developed from the architect's specification, principally the mid tone grey brickwork and the balcony balustrades.

The two Windsor views needed one further step. At that distance a photograph carries atmospheric depth that a clean render does not, so a light volumetric haze was introduced and calibrated against the baseline, kept deliberately short of anything that would alter how large, how near or how visible the building appears.

4 | Verified view production

The final images were composited in Adobe Photoshop, following Landscape Institute Technical Guidance Note 06/19 and the London View Management Framework. The Level 1 wirelines answer the first question, which is where the building is and how much of it can be seen. The Level 3 renders answer the second, which is what it is made of and how it settles into the street.

Where cumulative effects were relevant, the consented but unbuilt schemes at Queensmere, The Future Works and Station Square were added as red wireline overlays, built from published planning information and placed in the same coordinate framework.

Every image carries graticules at 10 and 1 degree increments and a marked optical axis. Camera locations, heights and reference data have been kept, so any view in the set can be revisited and checked.