# Barton Springs reference research

This scene is an artistic 3D interpretation informed by the sources below. The sources were used to correct the pool proportions, water color, deck edges, diving-board placement, lifeguard equipment, surrounding landscape, and the position of the downtown skyline. The bathhouse research below was kept for the record; the building itself was removed from the scene because it is hidden behind the north-bank trees in nearly every photograph of the pool. The scene is not photogrammetry and does not claim survey-level building heights, tree locations, or terrain elevations.

## Photographs and video

- [Getty aerial photograph via ELLE](https://www.elle.com/culture/travel-food/a37895138/austin-texas-travel-review/) — The pool reads as a very long, narrow, river-like swimming channel embedded in dense green parkland. Concrete edges and grassy banks are more characteristic than a resort pool deck.
- [Aerial image by Microbesandmuck27, Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_image_of_Barton_springs_pool_in_Austin,_TX.jpg) — Used as an additional aerial check for the elongated footprint, irregular pool outline, surrounding canopy, and open lawn areas. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 on the file page.
- [City of Austin pool video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIy7KXFDne8), especially 0:43 — Upstream water appears lime/olive in the shallows; grass steps and concrete are visible along the north side; layered rock appears toward the southwest; the east side reads darker under shade.
- [BadPanda Pictures drone video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNV9atcRXUk), especially 0:05 and 2:06 — Shows the concrete dam and green railing toward Barking Springs, then the pool and bathhouse site in context.
- [2009 lifeguard photograph, Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BartonSpringsPool-April2009-c.JPG) — Supports the use of simple functional lifeguard equipment rather than resort furniture. The file is CC BY-SA 3.0.

- A user-supplied aerial photograph looking east along the pool toward downtown (2020s) — Confirmed the wide band of blue-green glass towers over an unbroken canopy, the teal-green water, the flat limestone ledges on the south bank of the western half, and how completely the trees hide the bathhouse from pool level.
- Family observation (a regular swimmer): the water is deepest by the diving board, and the floor is bare, slippery, algae-coated rock rather than loose boulders. The bedrock floor, the diving well, and the algae film follow this.

## Bathhouse architecture

- [1948 exterior photograph, UNT Portal to Texas History / Austin History Center](https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth856864/) — Primary historical photograph of the bathhouse with pool in the foreground. The building reads as a low, horizontal structure with a curved central element and low wings.
- [Austin Parks and Recreation: Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse rehabilitation](https://www.austintexas.gov/parks/projects/joan-means-khabele-bathhouse-rehabilitation-barton-springs-pool) — Official history and rehabilitation page. It dates the present bathhouse to 1947, identifies the central rotunda, and documents the historic entrance and current pool-side access.
- [Austin master-plan preservation document](https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=282000) — Describes the bathhouse as a one-story masonry building influenced by Streamline Moderne, with an abstract “ocean liner” appearance. The plan is organized around a central transaction area flanked by two open-air dressing areas; the original ticketing canopy and central glass rotunda are specifically documented.
- [Barton Springs Bathhouse Prospectus](https://bandc.crccheck.com/arts-commission/340472-barton-springs-bathhouse-prospectus/) — Supports the central rotunda emphasis, naturally ventilated dressing-area volumes, and preservation of the historic architecture.
- [Barton Springs Tour field guide](https://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Watershed/fieldguides/Barton-Springs-Tour.pdf) — Places the recognizable spring crack near the lifeguard stand on the south side closest to the diving board. This supports keeping the diving board and the deepest, darkest water near the central spring and diving-board area.

## Site geometry and factual context

- [City visitor information](https://www.austintexas.gov/services/visit-barton-springs-pool) — Confirms the three-acre spring-fed pool, its year-round 68–70°F water, location, and public-pool context.
- [OpenStreetMap map data](https://www.openstreetmap.org/) — Retrieved 2026-09-16 through the OSM API using bbox `-97.775,30.261,-97.768,30.267`. The pool way is `27442711`; the bathhouse relation is `13599348`. The exported `site-data.js` uses the mapped pool and bathhouse footprints at a local scale of 1 unit = 4 meters.
- [OpenStreetMap copyright](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) and [Open Database License](https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/) — Required attribution and licensing references for the mapped geometry. © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The mapped outlines are used for plan geometry only. Topography, building heights, exact roof thicknesses, tree positions, and some fixture offsets remain estimated from the photographic and video references.

## Skyline, horizon, and sky

- [OpenStreetMap building data](https://www.openstreetmap.org/) — Retrieved 2026-09-16 through the Overpass API, bbox `30.245,-97.775,30.295,-97.725`, for every building tagged with `height` or `building:levels`. Buildings of 36 m or more within 4.8 km of the pool (105 of them, from Waterline at 315 m down) are exported to `js/skyline-data.js`, projected with the same origin and 10.8° rotation as the pool outline, so bearings are true: The Independent sits 3° north of the pool's long axis and Waterline 16° south of it, 2–3 km away. Heights use the `height` tag, otherwise levels × 3.5 m. Facade colours, window grids, and night lighting are invented. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.
- Photographs along the pool toward the dam (the City of Austin video above and common visitor photographs) show downtown rising over the east treeline; this placed and sized the skyline check.
- The wooded rises, their heights, and the cloud shapes are artistic approximations. Barton Hills do climb to the south and west of the pool, and downtown sits on slightly higher ground across Lady Bird Lake, but no elevation data was used.

## Live time and weather

- Solar position uses the NOAA solar-calculator equations (equation of time, declination, hour angle) for the pool's coordinates, 30.2640° N, 97.7713° W. It was checked against today's Austin sunrise (about 7:30 AM CDT), solar noon (about 1:20 PM, 62° elevation), and sunset (about 7:35 PM).
- [Open-Meteo](https://open-meteo.com/) current conditions (temperature, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, WMO weather code, precipitation) for the same fixed coordinates, refreshed every 5 minutes. Only those fixed coordinates are sent. Data is CC BY 4.0.

## Under the water

- [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Barton Springs salamander (Eurycea sosorum)](https://www.fws.gov/species/barton-springs-salamander-eurycea-sosorum) — Endangered, found only in the Barton Springs complex; adults reach about 2.5 inches, with external gills, slender bodies, reduced eyes, and colour ranging from purplish-brown to yellowish-cream. They shelter among gravel and cobble near spring outflows. The scene draws them about four times life size at the main spring so they can be seen.
- The Barton Springs Tour field guide above places the recognisable spring crack near the diving board on the south side, which is where the fissure and the salamanders are.
- Bed colour, cobble sizes, algae, and water clarity are approximations from the pool video and from the pool's reputation for clear, cool spring water.

## Terrain, land cover, moon

- [USGS 3D Elevation Program](https://www.usgs.gov/3d-elevation-program), exported 2026-09-16 from the National Map `3DEPElevation` ImageServer for bbox W -97.7895, S 30.2535, E -97.7525, N 30.2745 at 178 × 101 samples (about 21 m). Public domain. The pool surface samples at 131.7 m; the south hillside is 11.6 m higher 150 m out, Zilker's lawn 19.7 m, Barton Hills 44 m. The bank profile within a few units of the shoreline remains hand-built because the grid is too coarse to resolve the decks.
- [OpenStreetMap land cover](https://www.openstreetmap.org/), same bbox, retrieved 2026-09-16 via Overpass: `natural=wood`, `landuse=forest`, `natural=tree_row`, `landuse=grass`, `leisure=park`, `natural=water`, `waterway=river`, major roads, `natural=tree` nodes near the pool, and nearby buildings. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Park polygons are treated as wooded (Zilker is), only `landuse=grass` as open lawn.
- Moon position uses Paul Schlyter's low-precision method ("How to compute planetary positions"), accurate to about a degree, with the illuminated fraction from the sun–moon elongation. Checked against the September 2026 lunation (waxing crescent on the 16th, full on the 26th).
- Tree species: live oak and pecan are the dominant large trees around the pool in the aerial photographs and the city's tree inventory; their forms here (low spreading oaks, taller upright pecans) are modelled from those, not from individual surveyed crowns.

## The judges

- [Texas Monthly: On the Job With the Barton Boys, the Official Dive Rankers of Barton Springs](https://www.texasmonthly.com/style/barton-boys-dive-rankers-barton-springs/) and [Austin Monthly: Four Austinites Go Viral on TikTok by Rating Dives at Barton Springs](https://www.austinmonthly.com/four-austinites-go-viral-on-tiktok-by-rating-dives-at-barton-springs/) — Four friends sit directly across the pool from the springboard in matching visors and folding lawn chairs, hold laminated 1–10 cards on binder rings, and count off to reveal their scores together. The game's judges follow that: four chairs on the north terrace facing the board, cards raised in unison. The people themselves are invented.
- The introduction video "For the Love of the Springs" (One Story Productions, for the Barton Springs Conservancy) was supplied as a visual reference; its frames could not be captured here, so the aerial photograph and the sources above stand in for it.