October 2009 Entry - Docklands

[gilgamec]

Curses! After spending far too much time on last month's entry, you have to come up with another good theme! *sigh* I had to make this one something that I can bang out in a weekend. Fortunately, with a long weekend, I can get most of it done.

It's another procedurally generated map; this time, a commercial harbour, with docks and soundings. In order to get it done quickly, I've reused the same workflow as I've used in previous Challenges: create a quick sketch of the coastline (smaller dots indicate shoals)
landSketch.png
then add a little fractal noise to get a height (and depth) map. I can then modify the coast (add channels and seawalls) with another sketch
modSketch.png
which changes the height map. The points for soundings are created by a Poisson process on the water area, then the depths just read off the height map. The contours are calculated from the original depth map; I tried using the soundings to recalculate them, but the result was only slightly better, and much harder to control.

The map still needs a lot of notation (labels, lanes, buoy markers, cartouche, compass rose, etc.), but the land and sea are pretty much what I want.

### Latest WIP ###
docklands-1.png

[Roger]

Low tide is going to make some people very unhappy, I see. I like it.


Cheers,
Roger

[gilgamec]

I took advantage of a slow day to progress a little more. I'm not certain what to do with the labels; in some places the label background looks OK, but in others it's pretty hideous. I'm fairly happy with the rest of it, though.

### Latest WIP ###
docklands-2.png

[Juggernaut1981]

I kind of dislike the "partially transparent" background, especially for the text that crosses objects. I'd have been inclined to make them fully opaque backgrounds.

[gilgamec]

I kind of dislike the "partially transparent" background, especially for the text that crosses objects. I'd have been inclined to make them fully opaque backgrounds.

This is a really good idea, but it falls down for the long thin warehouses that are in the middle of the docks; those are completely covered up by their labels (and look really silly to boot):
notransp-sample.png
I'm loath to shrink the font any more, but it may be the only way.

[ravells]

Really nice clean feel to the map. I think this is a first for depth soundings too.

[gilgamec]

I've made the label backgrounds all opaque. I fixed the silly-looking bits by widening some of the docks, removing some warehouses, and generally being glad this isn't a map of an actual place!
### Latest WIP ###
docklands-3.png

Really nice clean feel to the map. I think this is a first for depth soundings too.

Thanks! I think (never having tried it myself) that depth soundings are one of those things that are extremely time-consuming to do manually but really easy to do procedurally. (In fact, the contour lines are much more difficult to do, computationally-wise.)

[Gandwarf]

Looks better and better...