Unwritten procedural modeling with the straight skeleton

Kelly, Tom (2014) Unwritten procedural modeling with the straight skeleton. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Creating virtual models of urban environments is essential to a disparate range of applications,
from geographic information systems to video games. However, the large
scale of these environments ensures that manual modeling is an expensive option.
Procedural modeling is a automatic alternative that is able to create large cityscapes
rapidly, by specifying algorithms that generate streets and buildings. Existing procedural
modeling systems rely heavily on programming or scripting - skills which many
potential users do not possess. We therefore introduce novel user interface and geometric
approaches, particularly generalisations of the straight skeleton, to allow urban
procedural modeling without programming.
We develop the theory behind the types of degeneracy in the straight skeleton, and
introduce a new geometric building block, the mixed weighted straight skeleton. In
addition we introduce a simplifcation of the skeleton event, the generalised intersection
event. We demonstrate that these skeletons can be applied to two urban procedural
modeling systems that do not require the user to write programs.
The first application of the skeleton is to the subdivision of city blocks into parcels.
We demonstrate how the skeleton can be used to create highly realistic city block
subdivisions. The results are shown to be realistic for several measures when compared
against the ground truth over several large data sets.
The second application of the skeleton is the generation of building's mass models.
Inspired by architect's use of plan and elevation drawings, we introduce a system that
takes a floor plan and set of elevations and extrudes a solid architectural model. We
evaluate the interactive and procedural elements of the user interface separately, finding
that the system is able to procedurally generate large urban landscapes robustly, as
well as model a wide variety of detailed structures.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: computer graphics, straight skeleton, urban, procedural modeling
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Supervisor's Name: Poet, Dr. Ron
• Date of Award: 2014
• Depositing User: Mr Tom Kelly
• Unique ID: glathesis:2014-4975
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 26 Feb 2014 13:26
• Last Modified: 26 Feb 2014 13:48
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/4975

Related URLs

• http://goo.gl/whgo6j