It’s been a little while since our last post on GIS and sports analytics. This week we thought we would have some fun and celebrate Wimbledon by creating a simple visualization using ArcScene and the new CityEngine Web Viewer.
This unique 3D tennis visualization invites you to step onto Centre Court at Wimbledon and see how Sergiy Stakhovsky bundled out 7 time Wimbledon Champion Roger Federer in the 2nd round at this years tournament.
Click here to open the 3D Web Viewer. (Best viewed in Google Chrome or any browser that supports WebGL. Recommended on a desktop machine). The above scene uses new HTML 5 WebGL technology, so there is no need to install a plugin to view the scene.
- The red lines on the map are aces.
- The green lines are where Sergiy forced Federer into a direct error on his return of serve.
- The white lines are serves that Federer put back in play.
The visualisation only includes serves at 15-30, 30-30, 15-40, 30-40 ans 40-Ad, and all of Sergiy’s serves during each tiebreak.
The 3D map is completely interactive. Click on each line and retrieve information about when the serve was made and what the score was.
You can even add a little more realism to the scene by adding shadows to the court (see below).
Use the ‘eye’ icons in the application UI to turn on/off layers in your scene.
To record the historic moment (and to make the scene more realistic) I have added the final score, the match duration and the time the match was completed to the scoreboard!
Spatial serve variation is thought to be a good indicator of ones serve success. However as you can see in the visualization Sergiy was not afraid of becoming predictable. When you are having so much success doing one thing, why change it up right?
Technology and further resources
To transform more of your 2D GIS data into smart 3D models, start your 30-day free trial of City Engine today.
The model was exported to the City Engine Web Viewer using the Export to 3D Web Scene geoprocessing tool in the 3D Analyst Toolbox (see below).
The Wimbledon Center court was imported into ArcScene from Trimble Sketch Up using the Import 3D Files geoprocessing tool (see below).
The tool will import files from 3D Studio Max (*.3ds), SketchUp (*.skp), VRML and GeoVRML (*.wrl), OpenFlight (*.flt), and COLLADA (*.dae).
For more information about CityEngine visit their resource page where you’ll find links to videos, help files and a great gallery of 3D scenes to inspire you’re next 3D map making adventure! Check out other cool CityEngine WebScenes here.
There is a great blog post about the CityEngine Viewer here.
I hope you enjoy this immersive 3D tennis experience!
Damien is a Geospatial Product Engineer on the ArcGIS Content team. @damiendemaj