Generative design project to produce large map-like artworks. Events will be written to assess conditions and trigger changes in the size, shape and placement of roads and properties to mimick the expansion of a real human-populated city. Parameters such as economic conditions will affect size and decedance of structures built on a property. Political factors such as public or private-sector dominance will affect variety of building. Land value will be determined by proximity to major routes and value of neighbouring properties.
The above image is a section of a print by Ashley Thomas. The inspiration for this project is to explore the question of what a code version of Ashley's very slow manual process could look like?
Above: Image shows the level of complexity that the project was able to generate at end of 2015
Above: Example from February 2016
Live at: http://circa.butterscotchworld.co.uk
The initial intention for this project was to be able to automatically generate highly detailed SVG files containing millions of properties which could then be loaded into a CNC router to cut a huge plywood printing block (at least 6 ft). This would be inked and pressed using a ride-on road roller at a public event open to spectators similar to this video from a Steamroller Festival in Canada: https://youtu.be/1tHgtmHc0bI
However, in December 2016, after receiving estimates of the cost and cutting time for such a large and complex pattern it soon became apparent this was unviable without significant financial input.
In October 2017 the project was reborn as a VR environment which can be experienced through a headset.
The application offers several ways to interact with the data:
/{id} - A non-interactive web-page for viewing an SVG of a map.
/{id}/develop - An interactive SVG view of the map with control panel to to send API requests to trigger map events and return results, updating the map if necessery.
/{id}/svg - Download an SVG file of the map.
/{id}/vr - WebVR interface for experiencing a map via a headset.
/api/... - Many operations can be triggered in isolation for development purposes.
- 2 small neighbouring properties on high value land might merge to enable them to build taller.
- Wars or natural disasters may raze structures.
PHP 7, Composer, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, SVG, CSS, WebGL.
PHP does all the generation of items on the map, collision detection and reading/writing the database.
MySQL database-backed for saving data and efficiently being able to perform operations on a small section of the map by selecting points with a range.
Run PHPUnit tests: vendor/bin/phpunit
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition) http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/
Coordinate Geometry http://www.mathopenref.com/coordintersection.html