Automatic Design Generation
of Non Regular Architecture
Chu-Ming Ng, Tiow-Seng
Tan, Joseph Lim, Yenn-Jin Ho, Wai-Heng Lai
Project
Synopsis:
This work comprises an
attempt towards automatic generation of non-regular building forms such as that
of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ’67 that
features the ability for the user to pause and interactively manipulate unit
shapes and subsequently resume the generation process. Below are some
screenshots of the some of the shape manipulation features implemented and some
videos(in .mp4 for) of the actual usage of the software. Each unit in the
program runs a user configurable AI program that will be run as a callback
function during every simulation time step. Technicalities of designing the
above routines include problems like robust collision detection, environment
knowledge, and optimization of user defined parameters. To generate novel unit
shapes, the collide-and-extrude feature is implemented and it involves
addressing issues of potential arbitrary shapes that can result when faces
collide. This work also features novel data structures and algorithms that
generate floorplans based on a proposed complexity metric and subsequently
performs automatic form completion (i.e. integration of the floorplan into the
existing model).
(Stripped of MFC generated
code, the project amounts to > 40k lines of code.)
Object
Slicing:
SlicingVideo.avi (mp4 format, use Xvid codec here )
Collide
and Extrude:
The program implements the
ability for the user to drag faces and on contact with faces of other units,
invoke the collide-and-extrude feature. See screenshot below for illustration.
This seemingly trivial operation involves geometric robustness issues and
requires properly handling using computational geometry techniques. This is due
to the faces that collide can possibly be arbitrary non-simple and the
collision may result in multiple disjoint and non-simple faces.
CollideAndExtrude (mp4
format, use Xvid codec here )
Large
Scale Form Generation and Shadow Control:
The following pictures show
the initial model, the partially completed model at a particular time slice,
and shadow placement using the placement widget on the top right.
SimulationAndShadow.avi (mp4 format, use
Xvid codec here)
Automatic
Form Completion
The system features a
floorplan generation module that allows the user to generate level floorplans
based on a metric controlling the complexity of the output floorplan. The left
image below shows the user interface for the generation and selection of
floorplan and the right image below shows the form completion engine
automatically integrating the floorplan into the existing model.
Partial
Blown Up of Completed Model Regions.
The following pictures show
artist impressions of part of a completed example model with the AI routines
programmed to fulfill the requirement of having outdoor space per generated
unit.
