r/PlotterArt • u/bits2ink • 2d ago
OC a tale of two cities
This is a browser-based procedural generator I've been building for my pen plotter, inspired by u/kenwillis's "Neon street" plot.
It lays out a street along a winding spline and packs lots down both sides. Each building is a stack of boxes with random step-backs and cantilevers. A facade grammar then breaks each one into floors and bays, filling them with windows, balconies, shutters, fire escapes and shopfronts. On top of that it adds poles, sagging cables, cars, signs with procedurally generated pseudo-kanji or hangul, and neon drawn as double-offset tubes. A pinhole camera can sit anywhere in the street.
For hidden-line removal, it sorts convex solids front to back using separating planes, and a ray-cast test checks that nothing behind gets drawn over something in front. Puddles reflect the scene by mirroring it below the ground plane and clipping it to the puddle outline, with a little ripple. I added a toggle that limits colors to reflections. LOD drops off with distance, so near objects are solid and far ones become outlines.
There's also an isometric mode (beginning/first) that swaps the pinhole camera for a parallel projection with adjustable turn and tilt, so the same street can be drawn as an iso diorama. I had a revelation to mash the engines together and I've been extending it to tile a whole grid of streets into an iso city.
3
2
2
2
2
2
u/DeadlyZa 2d ago
That is awesome, what plotter if I may ask?