2.5D render for map making

Hi all,

I’m trying to render some buildings from a top-down view in ‘fake’ 3d, similar to how google maps shows transparent buildings for some locations:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Venice,+Italy&hl=en&ll=45.439267,12.342077&spn=0.001246,0.002494&sll=51.51808,-0.093325&sspn=0.00221,0.004989&z=19

The X and Y are not distorted, but the Z axis is tipped slightly. Is this possible in Blender? I’ve tried a tilted camera in orthographic mode, but assume I’d have to stretch the render afterwards so the X or Y are to 1:1 scale again. Camera projections is not my strong point…

Any help/advice would be appreciated!

I think I’ve answered my own question… I wondered if I could just distort the objects instead with a lattice mesh and a lattice modifier on the building objects. I made a single lattice cube, scaled to the height of the tallest building, with its base on the ground plane. All the buildings were skewed slightly, but their bases remained where they should be.

Here’s a rough render to show it works: