TOADS: A Two-Dimensional Open-Ended Architectural Database System

The TOADS system is an innovative tool for building interior-space virtual environments (VEs) in two dimensions. Existing VE design tools typically operate in three dimensions, which makes it difficult to manipulate objects on the inherently two-dimensional computer screen. TOADS allows nearly the same functionality as those three-dimensional systems in an easy-to-use, two-dimensional environment. Users edit and enhance DXF floorplans with height and texture information. The software includes an inference engine that automatically identifies doors in the floorplan and generates openable polygons in the final environment. It also includes a sophisticated mechanism for embedding complex textures, such as transparent windows, at arbitrary heights in wall polygons. The entire interface is integrated with software that drives a custom texture-acquisition device. This device consists of a rack-mounted camera that captures narrow bands of textures and tiles them together to form long, continuous swaths of texture. This paper summarizes these tools and their function, and presents examples of environments that were generated with them.

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