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TreeTown

Contact: Peter Oppenheimer

Last Update: July, 1995

HITL artist-in-residence Peter Oppenheimer is applying a fractal branching metaphor to model architectural spaces in a project called TreeTown. TreeTown is interactive software developed as a subcontract to University of Central Florida's PolyShop program that makes 3D models of trees. Its graphic interface allows the user to vary control parameters changing the resulting model from a simple fern to a complex cherry tree. Randomization of numerical parameters reflects the equilibrium between the inherent tree-like nature of the architecture and the constraints of terrain and site.

Replacing the bark with asphalt and the leaves with buildings, the tree becomes a suburban town. As the program's parameter space expands, the town grows and evolves into a metropolitan hub. By "growing" the city with parametric rule based L-systems, the user can make sweeping overall modifications by varying only a few global parameters. Extra realism in TreeTown is achieved using Silicon Graphics' Onyx Reality Engine fast hardware texture mapping of photographed building facades.

HITL foresees applications of this technology in architectural design, urban awareness training, biological morphology and medical tissue modeling. This simple fractal approach may shed light on how fires and diseases spread.

Human Interface Technology Lab