Generating Buildings

Sandworm allows the procedural generation of buildings based on shapes stored in the vector data sources. This article reviews the general workflow. To customize the autogenerated buildings, prepare and use your assets, see the article on Buildings Customization.

Currently, Sandworm allows using only offline vector data sources for the generation.

1. In the Sources panel, add a new vector data layer.

   

   • Clicking on Vector opens the window for adding slots. Slots are designed to organize data.

     

   • Clicking on + Add Layer provides the toolset for uploading vector data.

2. In the Parameters panel, define the type of Data Source to be used: Assets or External Files. Currently, only *.shp and *.geojson are supported as assets. Therefore, if you have other types of files, you can try to add them as External Files.

   

   Click Import.

3. In the window that opens, select the set of files to be used as vector data.

When the vector data source is added, its image is displayed atop all the layers in the Preview panel (you may change the order of layers display), and the Vector layer parameters become available.

A Filter is a set of rules used to pick the specific data from the list of all available vector data. The rules are created using Attributes: only the objects that fit the requirements of every Attribute are generated based on this Filter.

Filters are created as follows:

1. Click the Add button in the Filters window of the Parameters panel.

   

   Double-click on the Filter to specify its name. To remove a Filter, use the Remove button. You can add as many Filters as necessary.

   The Share button allows shared use of the Filter among vector data layers. Select the vector data layer that will share this Filter in the pop-up window. Changes in a shared Filter will affect it in every vector data layer.

2. Select a slot from those created by you (Sources -> Vector).

3. Set an Attribute (or Attributes) for each Filter to filter specific data from the vector source. The required data is filtered using the Attribute values and a suitable operator. Autocomplete is available, and you can type in Attribute names and values.

4. The available operators are: =, !=, >, <, ANY. ANY generates all the objects that have any value assigned for the selected Attribute.

   Warning

   When using > and <, make sure that the selected Attribute type is a number. String comparison may cause issues.

   You can also select Attribute values from the Attributes table. The table opens using the sign on the right of the Attribute expression.

   

   Double-clicking on a value in the table adds it to the Attribute value field.

5. To add more Attributes, use the button. You can add as many Attributes for one Filter as necessary. It is possible to set AND and OR relations between Attributes in the Filter.

   

   To remove a Filter, use the button to the right of the Attribute expression.

In this step, we will set the parameters for buildings to be generated on the terrain according to the filtered data.

1. On the Sources panel, click + Add Object.

   

2. In the drop-down, select the type of object you want to generate according to the slot data. In our case, it is Buildings. Click Import.

   

Set the following object parameters:

Now you need to configure the output settings and generate (or regenerate) the terrain that contains these buildings by clicking the Generate button.

If the terrain has already been generated and you made no changes to it, you can regenerate only the vector data. In the corresponding settings, disable the data types you don't need to be regenerated.