Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

maps.probabletrain.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 48 posts

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#31

Post by rob2312 »

q_andrew wrote: post #23
rob2312 wrote: post #19

I did an undergraduate project based on the same paper as this (not nearly the same quality, but similar enough if you squint). The procedural method used for this kind of generation is really powerful -- you usually see L-Systems being used to create basic sort of fractals but these sort of implementations can become pretty smart. For example, you can provide a height map of the terrain, and make it so that the road…

I made a project like this too! Except it's not finished yet. Basically trying to turn the procedural buildings into a roguelike or something similar. https://andrewmanq.github.io/2020-05-28-new-buildings/

Nice! Those fake windows are a really cool idea

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#33

Post by totetsu »

Following the the BLM protests on the police scanner recently, I spent a day studying maps of Manhattan. What comes to mind here, is how some old roads remain like Broadway -> old postal road, that were laid in past times when the patterns of settlement were different from now. And also how parts of the grid have be repurposed into pedestrian only areas, as urban theory / demands has moved on from when the grid was made. It would be neat if something like this could generate patterns on top of patterns, to get these kind of historical layers.

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#34

Post by acafourek »

totetsu wrote: post #33

Following the the BLM protests on the police scanner recently, I spent a day studying maps of Manhattan. What comes to mind here, is how some old roads remain like Broadway -> old postal road, that were laid in past times when the patterns of settlement were different from now. And also how parts of the grid have be repurposed into pedestrian only areas, as urban theory / demands has moved on from when the grid was m…

Broadway is a great example of something having very long-lasting effects. It’s much older than a postal road, being originally formed as a footpath used by the local native tribes to travel up and down Manhattan. It roughly followed a ridge line that is not very evident in lower Manhattan today but becomes much more obvious when you get up to northern Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood.

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#36

Post by crazygringo »

MrMetlHed wrote: post #3
gruez wrote: post #2

In the demo pics there are radial/circular subdivisions. I find this odd, given that it's supposed to be an "American-style" generator. I've personally never seen any american city that has radial subdivisions.

Washington, DC? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Washington,+DC/@38.9099853...

Those are just traffic circles with some spokes.

The generated maps show concentric circles, which is super-unusual in the US. I don't think I've seen it anywhere.

I'm actually curious if it's a common pattern in some other country.

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#37

Post by asveikau »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #11
ecopoesis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston ( https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3591352,-71.06249,15.28z ) is close to round. You don't get grids until you get out of the colonial era city.

These cities were originally part of the colonies of the British empire. So I would say they aren't necessarily completely "American". I'd look more central to western US cities to see how American style city planning is done.

What you have are different eras. Older is usually more chaotic. Look at New York below 14th St., then contrast with above which came later.

You can draw another line when car culture became common. Before then, it was grids accessible by streetcars. After, the cul de sac style and similar becomes common.

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#38

Post by crazygringo »

mark242 wrote: post #21

Nitpick: I don't know of any American cities on the coast that have a road between housing and the sand. Certainly not a major road.

Rockaway Beach in New York City is definitely like that:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rockaway+Peninsula/@40.582...

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#39

Post by iworkfromhome »

Quite difficult to use because there are no control buttons there. Specifically for zoom control, two options are required for that. Also there are no instructions on how to make a map for a particular location that we want. And there is no description (tooltip) on every feature, new users get confused.

Re: City Map Generator – Create procedural American-style cities in the browser

#40

Post by thdrdt »

Oscar Stålberg created this 'game' https://store.steampowered.com/app/1291340/Townscaper/

He also has some great talks on YouTube about generating city maps with cube marching and wave function collapse.

His online map generator: http://oskarstalberg.com/game/CityGenerator/

What I like about his approach is that it looks very natural European instead of American.

Post reply on HN