A roof with a view

I love panoramic views into the distance. Cities, oceans, mountains, whatever. So when we were just starting to design our house, I wanted a roof balcony with a nice view.

Tokyo is pretty crowded, and there are tall houses on two sides of our lot. Naturally, I wanted to simulate how the view would look from the expensive roof balcony we were considering.

My first idea was to send a drone up to the correct height and photograph it, but that was difficult for a number of reasons, including the fact that I don’t have a drone that could do it.

So I loaded up Google Earth, took a bunch of screenshots from the right height/location, and used some stitching software to create an equirectangular panorama. I then used that as a texture in Twinmotion to virtually stand on our planned roof and preview the view. Now we have a real roof to stand on, and I can confirm that the simulated preview is pretty accurate!

(The tall, orangish building is the appropriately named Carrot Tower.)