Class Diagrams for the Fractal Land

Related Approaches to Scene Generation

The idea of using an ASCII plan to generate a 3D maze comes from the excellent "You Build It Virtual Reality" application by Chris Heistad and Steve Pietrowicz, developed while they were in the NCSA Java 3D Group. The scene is defined using a series of ASCII "maps" that specify the location of objects at different heights in the world. This layering approach allows the positioning of things along the y-axis. The notation used in the maps is extensible, so new kinds of objects can be included in the scene, including sounds and animations. The world is networked (using multicasting) with each user represented by an avatar. Communication is via a chat window. Unfortunately, this application is currently unavailable.

Daniel Selman describes a Doom-style application in Java 3D Programming (Manning Publications), in section 11.6.3. The map is a GIF, and the colors of its pixels are compared with color values assigned to scenery objects to decide how the scene should be constructed. Interesting elements include animated flaming torches and guards that walk through walls.