Calculating the real height of a building

YannickTO · #1 Posted **Mar 30, 2014, 6:33 PM**

Hello everyone,

I have no idea which section to post this. Please redirect my post if it's not at the right place.

I wanted to share an idea I've been thinking for years now and I wonder if you guys would agree with this or not.

We all know that having the «real« height of a building is somewhat a tough thing to get (besides the original drawings and planning of the building, things can change while building the building). Every website has different heights for the same buildings and it's quite hard to know exactly the real height.

Here's the idea. How many times did we see different individuals climbing buildings illegally, in various cities and countries, all around the world? We saw that many times. How about hiring those people and ask them to provide us with heights? Could be a 6-month contract for example.

We could ask that person to climb each building, have the tools to calculate the height, and there you go, we could have the real height for all buildings after it's built. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of daredevils around the world that would do this and instead of being an «illegal« act, we could take advantage of this and take the opportunity to ask them to calculate heights. Architectural heights that is.

Anyone think it would be a good idea? If it has been discussed before, I'm sorry. I did some research, could not find anything.

Thanks guys

NYCLuver · #2 Posted **Mar 31, 2014, 1:18 PM**

It would certainly be a fun way to calculate a height for a structure.

Though as long as it is done safely, I don't think it would be wrong, however I just doubt companies or owners of buildings would really care to spend money on something like that.

It's a nice idea though and definitely something that could be interesting and fun.

YannickTO · #3 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 11:57 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYCLuver

It would certainly be a fun way to calculate a height for a structure.

Though as long as it is done safely, I don't think it would be wrong, however I just doubt companies or owners of buildings would really care to spend money on something like that.

It's a nice idea though and definitely something that could be interesting and fun.

Well obviously, we would have to do this safely. I don't think it would be necessary to ask the daredevil to climb from bottom to top, from the outside. They could go on top of the building, from the inside, and then, they could maybe climb down the building. There must be a way. How about window cleaners? We should really make it mandatory for a company, when they finish building a structure, to provide municipal entities with real height of a structure. I just find it odd that we can't provide the population with EXACT figures. Every city should have an official book of statistics with the height of their structures. There must be a way.

Tom In Chicago · #4 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:02 PM**

What a wonderfully cartoonish concept

. . .

YannickTO · #5 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

What a wonderfully cartoonish concept

. . .

If you have another suggestion, go ahead!!

Is it that hard to have the height of our structures? From ground level to top of architectural height? I mean, speculating on heights, on structures that we, humans, built, seems silly. We need to get our act together and have international laws to provide SSP with ALL height accuracies of all its existing structures. No?

Tom In Chicago · #6 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YannickTO

If you have another suggestion, go ahead!!

Is it that hard to have the height of our structures? From ground level to top of architectural height? I mean, speculating on heights, on structures that we, humans, built, seems silly. We need to get our act together and have international laws to provide SSP with ALL height accuracies of all its existing structures. No?

I have no other suggestion. . . but yours. . . totally marvelous!!! I agree. . . there /should/ be international laws which require all buildings to be measured and documented (a plaque at the base of each building perhaps). . . but it is a fairly unrealistic expectation. . .

Getting the heights for structures is no easy task. . .

. . .

YannickTO · #7 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

I have no other suggestion. . . but yours. . . totally marvelous!!! I agree. . . there /should/ be international laws which require all buildings to be measured and documented (a plaque at the base of each building perhaps). . . but it is a fairly unrealistic expectation. . .

Getting the heights for structures is no easy task. . .

. . .

That's a great idea. In the lobby, there's an «official« government memo with the specifications of the structure. Height, floors and year of construction. Excellent idea.

HomeInMyShoes · #8 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:39 PM**

Can't you just stand n-feet away from a building use a scope, grab an angle and do simple geometry to calculate a building height? Provided you can see the pinnacle or roof or whatever arbitrary point we are using for the top of a building. I'm pretty sure we could do this with shadows as well from Satellite imagery (knowing the angle of the sun) and write a program to do it.

Tom In Chicago · #9 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YannickTO

That's a great idea. In the lobby, there's an «official« government memo with the specifications of the structure. Height, floors and year of construction. Excellent idea.

But what "government"? Government of the Earth?

. . .

YannickTO · #10 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

But what "government"? Government of the Earth?

. . .

The Government of Wikipedia OR skyscraperpage. Or both.

HomeInMyShoes · #11 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

But what "government"? Government of the Earth?

. . .

I can't wait to hear how tall the Ryugyong Hotel is.

YannickTO · #12 Posted **Apr 1, 2014, 8:50 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Can't you just stand n-feet away from a building use a scope, grab an angle and do simple geometry to calculate a building height? Provided you can see the pinnacle or roof or whatever arbitrary point we are using for the top of a building. I'm pretty sure we could do this with shadows as well from Satellite imagery (knowing the angle of the sun) and write a program to do it.

That's another good idea. As long as they hire people with math skills, I have nothing against that. I'm pretty sure, there is someone, somewhere, in this world, with buttloads of money, that could travel all around the world and he would be given, what, a 3-year assignment to complete his task? Then, all the data would be reported live, directly to SSP. Imagine being the one doing that. He/she would need to be good in geometry.

WhipperSnapper · #13 Posted **Apr 2, 2014, 1:50 AM**

What you fail to grasp is that new high rises are continually being built while old ones are being demolished. Understand that highrises are being completed ten times faster than the five minutes it would take to measure one tower.

YannickTO · #14 Posted **Apr 2, 2014, 11:07 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

What you fail to grasp is that new high rises are continually being built while old ones are being demolished. Understand that highrises are being completed ten times faster than the five minutes it would take to measure one tower.

It's not like we're destroying 10 Empire State Buildings per week. I don't get it, sorry.

chris08876 · #15 Posted **Apr 2, 2014, 12:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Can't you just stand n-feet away from a building use a scope, grab an angle and do simple geometry to calculate a building height? Provided you can see the pinnacle or roof or whatever arbitrary point we are using for the top of a building. I'm pretty sure we could do this with shadows as well from Satellite imagery (knowing the angle of the sun) and write a program to do it.

That's what I was thinking. Trigonometry works! Those Greek mathematicians spent their whole lives perfecting the math. "The Elements" is a great mathematical text to study these concepts.

Tom In Chicago · #16 Posted **Apr 2, 2014, 8:15 PM**

^In theory that would work. . . in practice. . . not so much. . .

. . .

dave8721 · #17 Posted **Apr 2, 2014, 8:45 PM**

a^2 + b^2 = c^2. A lot easier than climbing a building. You would need to calculate the angle to a high degree of accuracy since the differences we are talking about are only a few feet which would be a small fraction of a degree in view angle. Basically you would need survey equipment.

There are actually oblique image programs out there that let you measure the height of buildings from images but the accuracy could be off by 10 to 20 feet for a tall building.

Tom In Chicago · #18 Posted **Apr 3, 2014, 6:35 PM**

^Yes. . . you'd need survey equipment. . . and the ability to see both the base and tip of the building at the same time. . . not always possible, but thanks for the maths lessons. . .

. . .

rohanjain · #19 Posted **Apr 19, 2014, 6:02 AM**

Here is something formula to get height of skyscraper:
Measure the length of the broomstick's shadow
Calculate the ratio of the broomstick's shadow length to the broomstick's height
Measure the tower's shadow
Apply the ratio to discover the tower's height.

Guiltyspark · #20 Posted **Apr 19, 2014, 2:37 PM**

This all seems like a lot of effort to get information that really does not matter.