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Market Street 1906 in Blender

A research-first Blender brief: rebuild San Francisco's Market Street on the eve of the 1906 earthquake from fire-insurance maps, period film and photos, with reusable facade generators, then fly up the street.

By Alex Albert @alexalbert__ Sep 22, 2026

Type
prompt
Made with
Claude Opus 5.5
Built in
Blender
Topics
3D · Explainer

The prompt

Recreate Market Street, San Francisco as it stood on April 17, 1906, the afternoon before the earthquake, in Blender.

Scope: the Ferry Building up Market to Fifth Street, including the Palace Hotel, the Call Building, the Chronicle Building, Lotta's Fountain and the Emporium.

Before modeling anything, build a source file from: the 1899-1905 Sanborn fire insurance maps (footprints, heights, materials, occupants), the Miles Brothers film "A Trip Down Market Street" (April 1906), period photographs from OpenSFHistory, the Library of Congress and the David Rumsey collection, and USGS topography. Record every building with footprint, height, facade material, occupant, and the source for each fact with a confidence level.

Build everything in Blender Python. No downloaded meshes, textures or HDRIs. Write reusable generators (Victorian commercial facade, mansard roof, bay windows, awnings, painted signage, gas and electric street lamps, cable car, horse-drawn wagon, early automobile) and assemble the street from the source file, so every building traces back to data.

Provide a 10 second video up the street.

Quoted from Alex Albert's post. The prompt belongs to its creator; credit them if you share it.

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