I've been re-working my old "city buildings" scene from... several years ago(!)
It has not changed much since then, except for some subtle but important
additions and corrections to the code.

There are 650 buildings in this shot, randomly using 34 'real' image_maps for
the building windows (so far!) Those original images have from 1 to 20 or so
windows in them-- precisely cropped, so that the code eventually uses '1 window
unit' as a basic size to apply to each building. (But the entire window-image
tile is used if need be, not just a single window from it.) I also had to
manually make 34 window 'hold-out mattes' in Photoshop to create  the window
reflections, applied by a complex  texture{image_pattern....} used as a mask.
(See the docs about this.)

The real 'workhorse' code for texturing each building is POV-ray's BOXED
pattern-- and just yesterday, I discovered that I had been misusing it all this
time (for my purposes); I had to re-work a major portion of the code to correct
that flaw. Now each building's size is at strict multiples of the '1-unit
window' size-- along with the random thickness of the added 'concrete edges'.
Btw, the 'concrete' color is an average of each actual window tile-- chosen from
25 random points in each image_map, using eval_pigment(...) in a macro. Plus
some subtle added 'dirt'.

I've also added some more rooftop 'greebles', as well as exterior vertical box
shapes to the outsides of some buildings-- to break up the monotony. (I plan to
experiment some more with that idea.) Now I need to add 'upper stories' to some
of the buildings-- like recessed smaller copies of the main ones. That's how
most tall buildings in New York City are built-- in the past, they had to be
'stepped back', by city ordinance, the taller they got.

Then, some sidewalk trees-- and maybe animated cars in the streets. And
first-floor lobbies/doors, which will be a major task!

The scene so far parses 'reasonably' quickly: For 650 buildings, with AA but no
radiosity yet--  78 seconds total render time on my old Windows 7 machine (at
1600 X 900). The 'peak memory used' is about 1.1MB.

Still a work-in-progress, but comments, suggestions and nit-pics welcome ;-)

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