SpringerLink
Log in

Procedural modeling and layout method for a generic ancient Chinese city

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract  

This paper mainly proposes a city layout method based on the L-System method generated for an ancient Chinese cities. This method is improved by adding local constraints improvements, adding a symmetric factor, and introducing a distance constraint to guide the layout generation, so that the improved SE L-System can generate a symmetric urban layout and the degree of symmetry of the city can be globally controlled by the user. A building level control function is proposed to realize the map** from building location to building level and then to specific building parameters. Based on the parameters, ancient building complexes with different appearances and layouts that conform to the layout rules of ancient Chinese cities can be generated. Buildings are generated based on the L-System, and trees are generated at arbitrary positions according to the probability density of generated trees determined by the building density. Based on the convex hull and intersection of rays, the city walls and watch tower of the ancient city are generated, and the procedural modeling generation of a complete ancient Chinese city is realized. The experimental results show that the square and symmetrical structure of the ancient city layout generated by SE L-System is closer to a real ancient Chinese city layout.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price includes VAT (Germany)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Xujia Qin, upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The program code that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, Xujia Qin, upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Liu J (2018) Component-driven pocedural modeling for ancient Chinese architecture of the Qing dynasty. Int J Archit Herit 12(2):280–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15583058.2017.1410253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kim H, Han S (2018) Interactive 3d building modeling method using panoramic image sequences and digital map. Multimedia Tools Appl 77(20):27387–27404. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-018-5926-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ren P, Wang Y, Zhou M, Wu Z, Zhou P, Zhang J (2018) Data-driven modeling for Chinese ancient architecture. PRESENCE: Teleoperators Virtual Environ 26(4):389–401. https://doi.org/10.1162/PRES_a_00304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Li M, Nan L, Smith N, Wonka P (2016) Reconstructing building mass models from uav images. Comput Graph 54:84–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2015.07.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Nishida G, Garcia-Dorado I, Aliaga DG, Benes B, Bousseau A (2016) Interactive sketching of urban procedural models. ACM Trans Graph 35(4):130. https://doi.org/10.1145/2897824.2925951

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Edelsbrunner J, Havemann S, Sourin A, Fellner DW (2017) Procedural modeling of architecture with round geometry. Comput Graph 64:14–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2017.01.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ouyang P, Fathauer RW (2014) Beautiful Math, part 2: Aesthetic Patterns Based on Fractal Tilings. IEEE Comput Graph Appl 34(1):68–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Gdawiec K, Adewinbi H (2022) Procedural Generation of Artistic Patterns using a Modified Orbit Trap Method. Appl Sci 12(6):2923. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12062923

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Gieseke L, Asente P, Mech R, Benes B, Fuchs M (2021) A Survey of Control Mechanisms for Creative Pattern Generation. Comput Graph Forum 40(2):585–609. https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.142658

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Schwarz M, Muller P (2015) Advanced procedural modeling of architecture. ACM Trans Graph 34(4):107. https://doi.org/10.1145/2766956

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Demir I, Aliaga DG (2018) Guided proceduralization: Optimizing geometry processing and grammar extraction for architectural models. Comput Graph 74:257–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2018.05.013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Martin I, Patow G (2019) Ruleset-rewriting for procedural modeling of buildings. Comput Graph 84:93–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2013.01.003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Wu F, Yan D, Dong W, Zhang X, Wonka P (2014) Inverse procedural modeling of facade layouts. ACM Trans Graph 33(4):1–10. https://doi.org/10.48550/ar**v.1308.0419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Huang C, Sheng Y, Tai W (2015) Interactive and procedural modeling of featured Chinese architectures. In: Smart Graphics: 13th International Symposium, SG 2015, Chengdu, China, August 26-28, 2015, Revised Selected Papers 13. Springer International Publishing, pp 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53838-92

  15. Lechner T, Ren P, Watson B, Brozefski C, Wilenski U (2006) Procedural modeling of urban land use. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Research posters. ACM, pp 135–es. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.194

  16. Lipp M, Scherzer D, Wonka P et al (2011) Interactive Modeling of City Layouts using Layers of Procedural Content. Comput Graph Forum 30(2):345–354. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2011.01865.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Greuter S, Parker J, Stewart N, Leach G (2003) Real-time procedural generation of pseudo infinite cities. In: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australasia and South East Asia. ACM, pp 87–95. https://doi.org/10.1145/604471.604490

  18. Sun J, Yu X, Baciu G, et al (2002) Template-based generation of road networks for virtual city modeling. In: Proceedings of the ACM symposium on virtual reality software and technology. ACM, pp 33–40. https://doi.org/10.1145/585740.585747

  19. Chen G, Esch G, Wonka P, Müller P, Zhang E (2008) Interactive procedural street modeling. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 papers. ACM 27:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/1278780.1278822

  20. Lechner T, Watson B, Wilensky U (2003) Procedural city modeling. In: 1st Midwestern Graphics Conference, vol 4. Mandelbrot, pp 1–6

  21. Parish YI, Müller P (2001) Procedural modeling of cities. In: Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. pp 301–308

  22. Müller P, Wonka P, Haegler S, Ulmer A, Van GL (2006) Procedural modeling of buildings. ACM Trans Graph 25(3):614–623. https://doi.org/10.1145/1179352.1141931

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Schubiger-Banz S, Arisona SM, Zhong C (2014) Enhancing photogrammetric 3d city models with procedural modeling techniques for urban planning support. IOP Conf Ser: Earth Environ Sci 18(1):012169. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/18/1/012169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Sharma SA et al (2016) Development of “3D City Models” using IRS Satellite Data. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 44(2):187–196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-015-0478-9

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Jesus D, Coelho A, Rebelo C, et al (2012) Modeling urban environments from geospatial data: a pipeline for procedural modeling. In: Proceedings of the the third workshop on procedural content generation in games. ACM, pp 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/2538528.2538533

  26. Kim S, Kim D, Choi S (2020) CityCraft: 3D virtual city creation from a single image. Vis Computerer 36(5):911–924. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-019-01701-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Mehmet B, Sultan K, Umit I (2018) Semi-Automatic 3D City Model Generation from Large-Format Aerial Images. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 7(9):339. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi7090339

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Richards-Rissetto H, Plessing R (2015) Procedural modeling for ancient Maya cityscapes initial methodological challenges and solutions. In: 2015 Digital Heritage, vol 2. IEEE, pp 85–88. https://doi.org/10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2015.7419458

  29. Glahn E, Steinhardt NS, Thorp RL, Juliano AL (1984) Unfolding the Chinese building standards: research on the yingzao fashi. In: Chinese traditional architecture. pp 47–57

  30. Guo Q (1998) Yingzao fashi: twelfth-century Chinese building manual. Archit Hist 41:1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Li S (2003) Reconstituting Chinese building tradition: the yingzao fashi in the early twentieth century. J Soc Archit Hist 62(4):470–489

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Hu ZT, Qin XJ (2021) Extended interactive and procedural modeling method for ancient chinese architecture. Multimedia Tools Appl 80(4):5773–5807. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-09744-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Perlin K (1985) An image synthesizer. SIGGRAPH 85 Proceedings, ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics. pp 287–296. https://doi.org/10.1145/325165.325247

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61672462, 61702455) and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang province, China (Grant No. LY20F020025).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310023, China

    Xujia Qin, Wei Mao, Zhongtian Hu & Hongbo Zheng

  2. College of Computer and Information Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    **aogang Xu

  3. Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311121, China

    **aogang Xu

Authors
  1. Xujia Qin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Wei Mao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zhongtian Hu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hongbo Zheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. **aogang Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongbo Zheng.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Qin, X., Mao, W., Hu, Z. et al. Procedural modeling and layout method for a generic ancient Chinese city. Multimed Tools Appl 83, 47021–47048 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-16942-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-16942-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation