Here is a city made entirely out of an isosurface based on the cells
pigment. I had presented the problem that in step functions, isosurfaces
tend to give diffuse==0 on the edges of the steps.  When I stumbled
across the web page of Makoto Mukui
(http://www.cs-w.com/~earth/material/isopattern.htm),  I found that he
solved the problem elegantly simply with use of the max_gradient.
(PeteC had shared with us some pretty cool code for making this out of
randomly placed boxes of triangles, but I find the looks of this
isosurface more appealing.)

Now to texture to look like actual buildings, al'a  Batman Beyond...

 #declare F = function { pigment { cells color_map { Map } scale 1/4 }}
    isosurface{
      function { (y-F-1) }
      contained_by{ box { -120, 120 } }
      max_gradient 50
      accuracy 1/100
      scale 2
      pigment { rgb <0.7,0.7,0.9>*0.8 }
    }

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'cellcity.jpg' (35 KB)

Preview of image 'cellcity.jpg'