Seeking Guidance for Randomly-Generated House Modeling

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Seeking Guidance for Randomly-Generated House Modeling

Hello!

I’m new here and I’m beginning a project that I expect will take me some time to accomplish, so I want a little guidance. The purpose of this project is to gather some randomly-generated data for solar installations. Here’s what I want to do:

  1. Create a script that randomly generates 3d models of houses, but just the exteriors. No interiors e.g., no inner walls or windows or doors, just the overall shape: outer walls and rooftops with simple blocks and cylinders for chimneys and roof vents. Sort of as if the house shape had been carved from a solid block of material. The rooftop is the important part.

  2. Have the script generate random geometric shapes around the perimeter of the house.

  3. Have the script apply random textures to the house and the shapes surrounding it.

  4. Have the script generate a randomized light source from above to mimic the sun at various positions of the day.

  5. Have the script compose the scene over a random background image and apply some noise to the entire scene.

  6. Finally, have the script generate a site-plan-esque drawing of the rooftop, i.e., just a simple trace of the top-view of the 3D house model. It would be a trace of the rooftop only - not the random junk around the house.

Of course, I don’t expect anyone to do any of this work for me. I mainly want some guidance of how to start. I have a few programs in mind for how to accomplish all of this:

-Inventor
-AutoCAD
-Revit
-3ds Max //Still need to post to these forums!
-Sketchup
-Other? (Maya, Unity, Unreal, etc.)

I’ve had experience in all of these except 3ds Max and non-AutoDesk stuff. I’ve had no experience in scripting for any of these, but I have some general programming knowledge and I expect to start learning as soon as I can. Here are my questions:

A) Does this sound doable?
B) Which program(s) should I use? Perhaps one I didn’t list?
C) Where’s the best place to begin learning scripting for that program?

Your input is invaluable, and thank you for taking the time to read all this!

1 Like
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Hey @JimmyPrince,

Wow…you have decided to pursue an ambitious but admirable objective! Also what a cool avatar, btw.

Because this is a SketchUp forum, I’m sure you would expect that the strongest recommendation would be to use SketchUp. From my vantage point, it certainly appears to be your most viable option. You can write a Ruby script to do exactly what your post has enumerated. To help you get started, a LINK TO A LEARN RUBY SCRIPTING SEARCH is included for your use. (Click the bold text to be directed to the search.) You may want to disregard the first entry because it is an ad, but each of the other entries could be significant.

Welcome to our online community. Here are a few additional links to help get you oriented to this site as a new member.
WELCOME
GUIDELINES

Again, click the bold text to be taken to the specifically linked web pages. You are encouraged to post as frequently as you wish and I hope you will find your time here to be enjoyable and productive.