Pattern Tool

[Alfred Scott]

Matt Arnold and I are presently working on a new Pattern Tool for WildTools. It is similar to the Area Patterning tool but places its own series of patterns as a group of PowerCADD objects trimmed to the perimeter of the closed shape that you click on. Like the Tree, Shrub, Picture Frame and People tools, it has a set of color choices and it has the same color noise capability developed for the Jiggle command.

The result is that you have variations in the color of each object, so that will look like a realistic rendering of a brick wall, stone wall or flagstones.

Matt has been coming up with the patterns. We are starting with brick walls with various interlocking patterns of bricks. There are also stone walls, octagonal and hexagonal tiles, and flagstones.

There will be a cover flow interface and the result will be that you will have millions of possibilities available with just a few choices in the tool's dialog.

I would love to have anyone send in pattern suggestions. They should be in a PowerCADD drawing with the objects enclosed with a reference rectangle that will define the horizontal and vertical repeats. There will typically be a space between objects say for the mortar in a brick wall or grout in tile. The first object in the group should be offset from the top left of the reference rectangle by half the space between.

While we have principally been thinking of bricks, stones and tiles, we can also include patterns of ground cover like vines with leaves. While the shapes may be rectangles or polygons, they will all have the same fill color, so green vines with red flowers are out of the scope of what this can handle.

Alfred

[KEITHRENTON]

I have a number of hatch patterns that I have created for various stone walls along with timber cladding which may be of use. If you're interested I can send over what address should I do this to.

Regards

Keith

[Alfred Scott]

Keith,

My email is in the WildTools manual but you can use alfred@seqair.com or alfred.scott@me.com

Alfred

[Alfred Scott]

Here is a look at where we are with this tool.

In the dialog, you have a cover flow interface to select from a number of patterns. So far, all of these are rectangles enclosed inside a reference rectangle which determines the overall horizontal and vertical repeating pattern.

There is a color picker.

And you can set the color noise by dragging the thumb around. These are for saturation and brightness, and both of those values are mixed in so you have random hues (color).

At this point we only have an interface for the dialog worked out. It still needs more work but you can see where this is going.

The patterns so far are for rectangular shapes, but Matt Arnold is working on irregular stones and flagstones.

Alfred

[Alfred Scott]

And here are two examples of original patterns.

The patterns must be designed so that things that overhang to the top, left, bottom or right will fill in the empty spaces.

The tool will let you click on a closed shape in the drawing, then move the mouse around to get what you want, and then the objects will be placed in a group in the drawing and clipped, if necessary, to the perimeter of the closed object that you click on.

Alfred

[pbacot]

So can you move the pattern interactively so that it fits relative to the polygon the way you want? That would be a great improvement on hatch. I have some ideas I'll look at. So no extraneous line work? only polygons or rectangles? Can some pieces be abutting or do all elements have the grout space between them? I think you probably are already doing the standard paver patterns...