Procedural modeling of buildings

Abstract

Figure 1: This figure shows the application of CGA shape, a novel shape grammar for the procedural modeling of computer graphics architecture. First, the grammar generates procedural variations of the building mass model using volumetric shapes and then proceeds to create façade detail consistent with the mass model. Context sensitive rules ensure that entities like windows or doors do not intersect with other walls, that doors give out on terraces or the street level, that terraces are bounded by railings, etc. AbstractCGA shape, a novel shape grammar for the procedural modeling of CG architecture, produces building shells with high visual quality and geometric detail. It produces extensive architectural models for computer games and movies, at low cost. Context sensitive shape rules allow the user to specify interactions between the entities of the hierarchical shape descriptions. Selected examples demonstrate solutions to previously unsolved modeling problems, especially to consistent mass modeling with volumetric shapes of arbitrary orientation. CGA shape is shown to efficiently generate massive urban models with unprecedented level of detail, with the virtual rebuilding of the archaeological site of Pompeii as a case in point.

A Survey of Algorithmic Shapes

“…• rule-based: using substitutions and substitution rules to generate complex structures out of simple starting structures [29][30][31][32]; • imperative and scripting-based: using a scripting engine and techniques from predominant programming languages [20,33,34] or; • GUI and dataflow-based: using new graphical user interfaces (GUI) and intelligent GUIs to detect structures in modeling tasks, which can be mapped onto formal descriptions [35,36].…”

“…The resulting framework called CityEngine is a modeling environment for the shape grammar Computational Geometry Algorithm (CGA) Shape. MARKUS LIPP et al presented another modeling approach based on CGA Shape following the notation of PASCAL MÜLLER [31,35]. It enables more direct local control of the underlying grammar by introducing visual editing.…”

“…This system has further been extended by the work of PASCAL MÜLLER et al, which introduced a component split to extend the split paradigm to arbitrary 3d meshes, as well as occlusion queries and snap lines to model non-local influences of rules [31]. For example, two wall segments that intersect each other should not produce windows, such that the window of one wall coincides with the other wall; therefore, occlusion queries are used to decide if a window should be placed or not.…”

“…The key idea is to encode a shape with a sequence of shape-generating operations and not just with a list of low-level geometric primitives. In its practical consequence, every shape needs to be represented by a program, i.e., encoded in some form of programming language, shape grammar [31], modeling language [33] or modeling script [138].…”

Designer-driven 3D buildings generated using Variable Neighborhood Search

“…In [11], a realtime generation of floor plans based on design parameters is presented. Additionally, some of these techniques have been applied at the level of cities and groups of buildings, [12], [13], using grammar-based procedural mechanisms to define building structures and city landscapes and organization. Multiobjective optimization [6] has been applied to produce 3D level maps according to an interactive fitness evaluation.…”