5 ms·

Procedural City Generation

199 points by t-mw 12y ago

MilesTeg 12y ago
Reading the title I immediately thought these set of articles on procedural city generation. It's about the visual appearance of a city but very interesting nonetheless. http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940 http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940
- robgough 12y ago
  And I thought of Introversion's posts on their now-cancelled subversion game http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/. Particularly the early posts, though I think this is the last one they did about the city generator: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=41634 http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=41634
- Jare 12y ago
  I was reminded of Substrate [1], which spawned mrdoob's version [2] and led to a WebGL 3D version [3] [1] http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/index.php http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/i... [2] http://jsdo.it/mrdoob/xI3u/fullscreen http://jsdo.it/mrdoob/xI3u/fullscreen [3] http://www.jabtunes.com/labs/boidsnbuildings/ http://www.jabtunes.com/labs/boidsnbuildings/
pests 12y ago
If you like procedural generation check out [0]. His recent blog posts have been about his Minecraft-like voxel engine (currently being used for Everquest Landmark I believe) but he has a lot of great gems in his archives. Two recent articles about his language to randomly generate architecture, and two older ones about city generation: http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/cantor-city.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/cantor-city.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/life-without-debugger.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/life-without-debugger.... http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/screenshots-of-building-scopes.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/screenshots-of-buildin... - Builds a city over rocky terrain. http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/city-lots.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/city-lots.html The video in the second one is really cool from a programming and debugging perspective. [0] http://procworld.blogspot.com http://procworld.blogspot.com ed: Added more city-generation links.
DangerousPie 12y ago
Bandwidth exceeded, cache here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://tmwhere.com/city_generation.html&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=xzrhVObjLcjV7QaGwYGIDA http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... Looks like some parts are missing though.
- t-mw 12y ago
  Sorry, I ran into some unexpected bandwidth limits. I've put up a mirror here: http://tmwhere.nfshost.com/city_generation.html http://tmwhere.nfshost.com/city_generation.html
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 12y ago
I was discussing procedural city generation with a graphics person awhile back. One of the things we realized is that procedurally generated cities almost always feel "wrong" because real life cities generally have a mishmash of dozens of general architectural "styles" based on various quirks of history. One example: in Cincinnati Ohio, working class houses in certain neighborhoods have stained glass windows. It's usually only one or two small ones, but they're there in certain neighborhoods because of a stained glass artisan "scene" that arrived on a wave of German immigrants. Another quirk about Cincinnati: there are lots of houses that are quite narrow for their plan area, because taxes were based on the width of the building on the street. There are quirks like these that cause a city to be a geographically differentiated patchwork of different styles.
- bronz 12y ago
  Where can I learn more about the forces underlying the topography of cities? I find the connection you described between house width and taxation to be fascinating.
  - GuiA 12y ago
    The Death And Life of Great American Cities might overlap with and be a good starting point for what you're looking for.
    - bronz 12y ago
      Thank you very much.
  - frik 12y ago
    Skyscrapers in New York of different decades have a architecture based on the city building code (famous example Empire State Building).
  - RobertKerans 12y ago
    Cities in Evolution by Patrick Geddes has some overlap (it's quite ideological though). It's archived as well: https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft
mjn 12y ago
Relatedly, I found this survey of different methods for procedural city generation (template-based, agent-simulation-based, etc.) to be informative: http://www.citygen.net/files/images/Procedural_City_Generation_Survey.pdf http://www.citygen.net/files/images/Procedural_City_Generati...
- frik 12y ago
  Excerpt: Road networks are a key aspect of city character and identity. Road networks are difficult to generalize since they are an interwoven component of a complex system. When viewing road networks from a map or city plan a number of patterns can be observed. It is these patterns that are key for procedural generation as they encode the structure of the road network. Roads and rivers are the hard part, placing buildings next to it based on templates is easier.
drewda 12y ago
Or, if you'd like to buy this off-the-shelf, the second author of the cited paper went on to co-found a company called Procedural, which was bought by Esri (the geo-spatial tech giant). Their work is still available as the City Engine product: http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine
Animats 12y ago
There are lots of programs which generate a semi-plausible city map, perhaps filled with generic buildings. But so far nobody seem to be able to generate something that looks even vaguely convincing from street level. It would be fun, and even useful, to have a procedural storefront generator. One that constructs storefront styles, signage styles, door styles, and window displays. Use images from a street view program to train a machine learning algorithm as to what various parts of cities look like. Don't just use existing storefront images; build them up in 3D from door, window, sign, and display components.
cfrs 12y ago
Book on this topic from architecture side: http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Architecture-Kostas-Terzidis/dp/0750667257 http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Architecture-Kostas-Terzid...

199 points by t-mw 12y ago

Reading the title I immediately thought these set of articles on procedural city generation. It's about the visual appearance of a city but very interesting nonetheless. http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940 http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940

robgough 12y ago
And I thought of Introversion's posts on their now-cancelled subversion game http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/. Particularly the early posts, though I think this is the last one they did about the city generator: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=41634 http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=41634
Jare 12y ago
I was reminded of Substrate [1], which spawned mrdoob's version [2] and led to a WebGL 3D version [3] [1] http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/index.php http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/i... [2] http://jsdo.it/mrdoob/xI3u/fullscreen http://jsdo.it/mrdoob/xI3u/fullscreen [3] http://www.jabtunes.com/labs/boidsnbuildings/ http://www.jabtunes.com/labs/boidsnbuildings/

pests 12y ago

If you like procedural generation check out [0]. His recent blog posts have been about his Minecraft-like voxel engine (currently being used for Everquest Landmark I believe) but he has a lot of great gems in his archives. Two recent articles about his language to randomly generate architecture, and two older ones about city generation: http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/cantor-city.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/cantor-city.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/life-without-debugger.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/life-without-debugger.... http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/screenshots-of-building-scopes.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/screenshots-of-buildin... - Builds a city over rocky terrain. http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/city-lots.html http://procworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/city-lots.html The video in the second one is really cool from a programming and debugging perspective. [0] http://procworld.blogspot.com http://procworld.blogspot.com ed: Added more city-generation links.

DangerousPie 12y ago

Bandwidth exceeded, cache here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://tmwhere.com/city_generation.html&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=xzrhVObjLcjV7QaGwYGIDA http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... Looks like some parts are missing though.

t-mw 12y ago
Sorry, I ran into some unexpected bandwidth limits. I've put up a mirror here: http://tmwhere.nfshost.com/city_generation.html http://tmwhere.nfshost.com/city_generation.html

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

stcredzero 12y ago

I was discussing procedural city generation with a graphics person awhile back. One of the things we realized is that procedurally generated cities almost always feel "wrong" because real life cities generally have a mishmash of dozens of general architectural "styles" based on various quirks of history. One example: in Cincinnati Ohio, working class houses in certain neighborhoods have stained glass windows. It's usually only one or two small ones, but they're there in certain neighborhoods because of a stained glass artisan "scene" that arrived on a wave of German immigrants. Another quirk about Cincinnati: there are lots of houses that are quite narrow for their plan area, because taxes were based on the width of the building on the street. There are quirks like these that cause a city to be a geographically differentiated patchwork of different styles.

bronz 12y ago
Where can I learn more about the forces underlying the topography of cities? I find the connection you described between house width and taxation to be fascinating.
- GuiA 12y ago
  The Death And Life of Great American Cities might overlap with and be a good starting point for what you're looking for.
  - bronz 12y ago
    Thank you very much.
- frik 12y ago
  Skyscrapers in New York of different decades have a architecture based on the city building code (famous example Empire State Building).
- RobertKerans 12y ago
  Cities in Evolution by Patrick Geddes has some overlap (it's quite ideological though). It's archived as well: https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft

mjn 12y ago

Relatedly, I found this survey of different methods for procedural city generation (template-based, agent-simulation-based, etc.) to be informative: http://www.citygen.net/files/images/Procedural_City_Generation_Survey.pdf http://www.citygen.net/files/images/Procedural_City_Generati...

frik 12y ago
Excerpt: Road networks are a key aspect of city character and identity. Road networks are difficult to generalize since they are an interwoven component of a complex system. When viewing road networks from a map or city plan a number of patterns can be observed. It is these patterns that are key for procedural generation as they encode the structure of the road network. Roads and rivers are the hard part, placing buildings next to it based on templates is easier.

drewda 12y ago

Or, if you'd like to buy this off-the-shelf, the second author of the cited paper went on to co-found a company called Procedural, which was bought by Esri (the geo-spatial tech giant). Their work is still available as the City Engine product: http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine

Animats 12y ago

There are lots of programs which generate a semi-plausible city map, perhaps filled with generic buildings. But so far nobody seem to be able to generate something that looks even vaguely convincing from street level. It would be fun, and even useful, to have a procedural storefront generator. One that constructs storefront styles, signage styles, door styles, and window displays. Use images from a street view program to train a machine learning algorithm as to what various parts of cities look like. Don't just use existing storefront images; build them up in 3D from door, window, sign, and display components.

cfrs 12y ago

Book on this topic from architecture side: http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Architecture-Kostas-Terzidis/dp/0750667257 http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Architecture-Kostas-Terzid...