CSE CityScape 0.3

Welcome to CSE CityScape!

CityScape is a VRML experience. The aim was to develop algorithms giving birth to a ìcredibleî city layout without laying any stone explicitly.

With the exception of the City Hall, in the center of the map, all the buildings in the city are each time different, generated by a stochastic algorithm.

Based on heuristic rules and recursive algorithms, thousands of primitive shapes are combined and placed to obtain a somewhat realistic ìfuturistî cityscape.

Parks, with trees and ponds, avenues or small streets, huge buildings or small houses are arranged in a regular pattern, looking like modern American cities (or actually historical roman ones).

Texture mapping is necessary to give live to a 3D image (and lessen the impression of seeing a world of cubes, cylinders and spheres).

To keep small file size, a random pixel-based texture generator is included, giving a more realistic view when walking in the streets of the city.

On a normal PC, the small size of the textures allows a real-time rendering

and hence the impression of really walking in the streets. But for those of you who do not like walking, please visit the city by air.

Thanks to a random landscape generator combined with a fog effect, which gives a breath-taking rendering touch, flying over your city really makes you fasten your seat-belt!

Get into your chopper and hover to discover audacious architectural inventions, or to

follow the strange inhabitants of the city as they drive through the streets (advice: buy a faster computer).

As a final note, here is a tribute to V. Gardet, who developed years ago a similar concept.

His VRML City inspired me, and more:

The tree shapes, the animation engine and the animated elements, as well as many programming tricks (I never used VRML

beforeÖ so I needed a model like on how to call, for instance browser.addnodefromtext)Ý have been copied or adapted from his work. So I encourage visiting his web site: VRML City by Vincent Gardet (2001).

And now ready for the adventure?

[According to your computer's speed, the generation may take several minutes.]
Have a walk in the city...