Generalized Use of Non-Terminal Symbols for Procedural Modeling

We present the new procedural modeling language G² (Generalized Grammar) which adapts various concepts from general purpose programming languages in order to provide high descriptive power with well-defined semantics and a simple syntax which is easily readable even by non-programmers. We extend the scope of previous architectural modeling languages by allowing for multiple types of non-terminal objects with domain-specific operators and attributes. The language accepts non-terminal symbols as parameters in modeling rules and thus enables the definition of abstract structure templates for flexible re-use within the grammar. To identify specific scene parts or objects, we introduce flags which are Boolean values whose scope covers an entire subtree in the scenegraph. The rigorous handling of typed parameters which are locally declared within the rules prevents inconsistent states emerging from not or wrongly declared variables. By deriving G² from the well-established programming language Python, we can make sure that our modeling language has a well-defined semantics. For illustration, we apply G² to architectural as well as plant modeling in order to demonstrate its descriptive power with some complex examples.

We also provide a Python prototype related to this paper for an easy integration of our system into the Houdini modeling framework from SideFX software. It is available on the project page.